Emergency service officials in Portugal have reported that they are gradually bringing the spate of wildfires under control in that country. The cause of these fires has been the merciless heat that has plagued Portugal this summer. Temperatures over 104 F have been reached in the country and hot, dry conditions combine to assist wildfires to spread.
Recent cooler temperatures have aided firefighters in getting a handle on the blazes. Wildfires are common in Portugal every summer but the high temperatures and dry conditions are causing them to burn out of control.
Close to 1,700 firefighters are currently fighting eight large fires in the Portugese countryside, seven others have been brought under control and 19 are almost out altogether. Large water-dropping airplanes have contributed to the firefighting effort.
Northern Portugal has been the site of most of the wildfires due to thick forests of pine and eucalyptus trees and steep ridges make firefighting especially hard.
NASA’s Aqua satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument on July 25, 2017. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner with information from Portugese emergency services and the Civil Protection Agency in Portugal.