Fires in Portugal

Forest fires that plagued Portugal in July 2005 flared up again in August 2005. By late August, a national state of emergency was in effect for the central part of the country.

In the countryside around Portugal’s second largest city, Porto, and in the Estrela Mountains to the southeast, numerous fires continued to burn on August 14, 2005, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image. The locations of active fires that MODIS detected are outlined in red. Vegetation is bright green, and burned areas are deep red. According to news reports, an increase in temperatures is making a deadly situation worse. Several firefighters have been killed over the past several weeks, and temperatures were predicted to reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) on August 15.

The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions.

Metadata

  • Sensor

    Aqua/MODIS

  • Start Date

    2005-08-14

  • Event Start Date

    2005-07-08

  • NH Image ID

    13042

  • NH Event ID

    10709

  • NH Posting Date

    2005-08-15