Thousands of firefighters battled 65 wildfires raging across Portugal as the return of scorching heat put an end to the brief respite after the huge fires in June that killed more than 60. To complicate matters a civil protection official warned that weather conditions during the coming weekend are forecast to be “especially favorable for wildfires.” The weather will include strong winds and temperatures of up to 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) forecast. Twelve fires are ongoing as of the posting on today’s website while 8 are under control and 12 have been put out. These totals are courtesy of the Civil Protection Agency of Portugal website.
Firefighters are blaming low air humidity levels and strong winds, which frequently changed direction, in complicating the battle against the blaze. Some of the fires are believed to have been arson caused and some others have been caused by lightning strikes during weather events.
After an uncommonly dry winter and spring, almost 79 percent of the Portuguese mainland was enduring extreme or severe drought at the end of July, according to the national weather office.
This image is a composite of NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite and NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites which collected this natural-color image using the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instrument and the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument on August 10, 2017. This image was taken from the EOSDIS Worldview website. Actively burning areas are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner and information from the Civil Protection Agency of Portugal.