Fires in Portugal

FiresinPortugal

25 August 2005

Some visual impressions of the fires in Portugal:

Comments of the GFMC on the Fire Situation in Portugal:

Air humidity levels and air temperatures returned to normal levels for this time of the year (see below) and helped to bring the strongest blazes under control. Nevertheless, still several new fires started, though in general much smaller due to the thick fog that rolled onto Portugal´s coast.

According to a new´s report by The Australian from today (25 August 2005, see below) the government vowed to take steps to lower the risk of future fires, notably by changing subsidy rules to encourage the clearing of brush on people’s land. Further reasons for increased fire risk can be seen in the abandonment of large swathes of forests in the interior as young people have moved to coastal cities, a focus on planting profitable but highly combustible tree species like fast-growing eucalyptus, and the fact that the country’s roughly 3.3 million hectares of forest are split up among over half a million property owners.

Although the article points out possible reasons for the large number of severe wildfires in Portugal, it does not address the most important issue: arson. Arson can be considered as the main problem in dealing with fires in Portugal and is deeply rooted in its society and its responsability to natural resources.

Current media information:

  • Weather brings forest fire relief (published by www.theaustralian.news.com.au, 25 August 2005)

  • Trece incendios arden sin control en Portugal y ochenta personas son evacuadas por un fuego en Ourense (published by www.elmundo.es, 25 August 2005)

  • Fog helps, hinders Portugal forest fire fight (published by www.alertnet.org, 24 August 2005)

  • Firefighters continue to battle Portugal’s worst forest fire in decades (published by www.maldivesinfo.gov.mv, 24 August 2005)

  • ISDR / GFMC: Fires in Portugal: There is a need for stronger cooperation between countries (press release by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 23 August 2005)

Latest satellite scenes showing fires and fire affected areas in Central Portugal:

Drought-ravaged forests in Portugal continued to burn in the fourth week of August 2005. This image of the fires (outlined in red) was captured on 24 August 2005, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.


TERRA
24 August 2005
13:35 hrs UTC
(Image courtesy MODIS)


True colour: Bands 1-4-3


False Colour: Bands 7-2-1

The links provide a 250 m resolution for both scenes

The infrared-enhanced image makes burned areas (deep reddish brown) stand out from healthy vegetation (bright green) and water (dark blue). Clouds appear bright blue.

(Source: Earth Observatory)

ECPC Fire Weather Forecast: 

The GFMC displays selected and daily updated  Experimental Climate Prediction Center (ECPC)  Fire Weather Forecasts for Europe. These examples allow a quicklook and provide daily and weekly total forecasts. For background information refer to the ECPC products description page.


FWI forecast for the next 60hrs

Precipitation amount forecast for the next 60 hrs

Surface temperatures forecast for the next 60hrs

Relative humidity forecast for the next 60hrs

(Source: ECPC Fire Weather Index Forecast)

For more details on fires in Portugal:

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