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Portuguese Civil Defense Flags

Proteção Civil - Portugal

Last modified: 2024-11-23 by klaus-michael schneider
Keywords: civil defense | trefoil | triangle(equilateral) |
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[Portugal National Civil Defense Authority flag] 2:3, image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 6 Apr 2017
See also:

National Emergency and Civil Defense Authority (Autoridade Nacional de Emergência e Proteção Civil)

National Civil Defense Authority (Autoridade Nacional de Proteção Civil)

The National Emergency and Civil Defense Authority, created in 2006 as National Civil Defense Authority (Portuguese: Autoridade Nacional de Proteção Civil)to join the hitherto disparate entities that supervised general firefighting (S.N.B., created in 1979), fostest fire fighting (CEFF, created in 1987), and civil protection (S.N.P.C., created in 1975). I don´t know how it is related to the National Council of Civil Defense, mentioned below.
Its flag with white with its seal/logo centred on it, The logo shows a trefoil knot with elliptical loops, each coloured blue, orange, and green, with the orange loop pointing down. The seal adds a round tangent rim with black edgings, reading "PROTEÇÃO CIVIL" above and "AUTORIDADE NACIONAL" below, separated by big dots.
Sources: Portuguese WIKIPEDIA, official website
António Martins-Tuválkin, 6 Apr 2017


National Council of Civil Defense

Flag (reported 2001)

[Portugal Civil Defense Council flag 2001] 2:3, image by Jorge Candeias, 1 Mar 2001

This winter in Portugal there have been lots of chances to spot on TV the civil defense flag. It’s a simple white logo-on-white-background type of flag, with the seal of theportuguese civil defense in centre: an orange circle, bordered white contains a blue triangle, also bordered white and is surrounded by a blue ring with a white and a narrow blue border and containing the words "PROTECÇÃO CIVIL / PORTUGAL" in white.
Jorge Candeias, 1 Mar 2001 / 2 Mar 2001

The symbol is more or less the same used by Civil Defense institutions all around the world; it is one of the Geneva Convention Protocol symbols.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 7 Mar 2001

Flag (reported 2007)

[Portugal Civil Defense Council flag 2007] 2:3, image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 14 Jan 2007

In recent times a slightly different version has been repeatedly spotted, with a bicolour green-red ring around the orange disc and golden yellow instead of white in the lines separating the triangle and the disc.
Source: photo provided by António Martins-Tuválkin, 14 Jan 2007
António Martins-Tuválkin, 14 Jan 2007

Localised Versions

Information about the Portuguese Civil Defense system was further completed by João Cardigos, ex-mayor of the Portuguese smallest municipality (Corvo, Azores): It consists of a number of local offices, organised at municipal level, integrating the departments that might be indispensable in an emergency and presided by the respective mayors. These Local Councils, as they are called, get sort of federated at regional level and then at national level.
Jorge Candeias, 8 Mar 2001

Specific Version

I had noticed that my local municipal Civil Defense unit uses a similar flag but with the municipality name ("SESIMBRA") in lieu of "PORTUGAL". This implies the existence of municipal Civil Service flags along with a national one (and perhaps regional ones, where appliable?) — potentially 307 slightly different flags!
António Martins, 7 Mar 2001

Generic Version

However, I saw several times a flag with the seal reading "PROTECÇÃO CIVIL / MUNICIPAL". So it seems that a number of municipal offices use this generic flag instead of the specific one. That makes things even more interesting for us flag-hunters: to determine which ones get generic, which ones get local… and, since we’re at it, why…
Jorge Candeias, 08 Mar 2001


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