Portugal fires: EU funds water-bombing planes

Portugal fires: EU funds water-bombing planes

04 September 2012

Portugal–– Firefighting aircraft have arrived in Portugal to help tackle scores of forest fires raging across the country.

The four aircraft – two from Spain and two from France – are being funded by the EU.

In another glimmer of hope, Portuguese officials said two major fires had been extinguished on Tuesday.

But nearly 8,000 firefighters remain deployed at more than 280 fires amid a forecast of continuing hot temperatures and strong winds.

The Canadair water-bombing planes arrived on Tuesday in the district of Leiria which had been the scene of one of the worst wildfires, Portuguese media reported.

Portugal asked the EU for four water-dumping aircraft after a helicopter being used in the operations crashed.

The pilot and co-pilot are said to have escaped with minor injuries.

“The European Commission is supporting the efforts to tackle the serious forest fires in Portugal,” an EU statement said.

“The authorities in Lisbon requested assistance and Spain made an offer for two Canadair firefighting aeroplanes through the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism.

“The commission has also agreed to the immediate deployment of two EU-funded firefighting aircraft from France.”
Life lost

Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Co-operation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, said European solidarity was important in such situations.

The fires have claimed at least one life – a man who died trying to protect his farm in Ourem district, near Leiria.

The BBC’s Alison Roberts in Lisbon says the heavily-forested north of the country is suffering the most but the tourist destinations of the Algarve and the island of Madeira were also hit earlier in the summer.

EC spokesman David Sharrock said further help could be provided if needed.

“The forecast is for another period of at least four days of extremely dry and hot weather,” he said.

“With this reinforcement of equipment we hope that Portuguese authorities are on top of it, but obviously if further assistance is required then we are ready and standing by.”

Briton Anthony Bulles who has lived in Alvaiazere, Leiria, with his wife for three years said it was the first time they had seen a fire so close to them.

“You cannot argue with fire, you cannot win,” he said.

Neighbouring Spain has also been battling fires this year, with some 153,000 hectares (378,000 acres) of land scorched since January.

Over the weekend, thousands of people fled homes along the southern Costa del Sol, one of Spain’s most popular holiday destinations and home to a large British expatriate community.

When the Fourmile Canyon Fire erupted west of Boulder in 2010, smoke from the wildfire poured into parts of the city including a site housing scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-08-evidence-heat-trapping-effects-wildfire-particles.html#jCpWithin 24 hours, a few researchers at the David Skaggs Research Center had opened up a particle sampling port on the roof of the building and started pulling in smoky air for analysis by two custom instruments inside. They became the first scientists to directly measure and quantify some unique heat-trapping effects of wildfire smoke particles.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-08-evidence-heat-trapping-effects-wildfire-particles.html#jCpWhen the Fourmile Canyon Fire erupted west of Boulder in 2010, smoke from the wildfire poured into parts of the city including a site housing scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Within 24 hours, a few researchers at the David Skaggs Research Center had opened up a particle sampling port on the roof of the building and started pulling in smoky air for analysis by two custom instruments inside. They became the first scientists to directly measure and quantify some unique heat-trapping effects of wildfire smoke particles. “For the first time we were able to measure these warming effects minute-by-minute as the fire progressed,” said CIRES scientist Dan Lack, lead author of the study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers also were able to record a phenomenon called the “lensing effect,” in which oils from the fire coat the soot particles and create a lens that focuses more light onto the particles. This can change the “radiative balance” in an area, sometimes leading to greater warming of the air and cooling of the surface. While scientists had previously predicted such an effect and demonstrated it in laboratory experiments, the Boulder researchers were one of the first to directly measure the effect during an actual wildfire. Lack and his colleagues found that lensing increased the warming effect of soot by 50 to 70 percent. “When the fire erupted on Labor Day, so many researchers came in to work to turn on instruments and start sampling that we practically had traffic jams on the road into the lab,” Lack said. “I think we all realized that although this was an unfortunate event, it might be the best opportunity to collect some unique data. It turned out to be the best dataset, perfectly suited to the new instrument we had developed.” The instrument called a spectrophotometer can capture exquisite detail about all particles in the air, including characteristics that might affect the smoke particles’ tendency to absorb sunlight and warm their surroundings. While researchers know that overall, wildfire smoke can cause this lensing effect, the details have been difficult to quantify, in part because of sparse observations of particles from real-world fires. Once the researchers began studying the data they collected during the fire, it became obvious that the soot from the wildfire was different in several key ways from soot produced by other sourcesdiesel engines, for example. “When vegetation burns, it is not as efficient as a diesel engine, and that means some of the burning vegetation ends up as oils,” Lack said. In the smoke plume, the oils coated the soot particles and that microscopic sheen acted like a magnifying glass, focusing more light onto the soot particles and magnifying the warming of the surrounding air. The researchers also discovered that the oils coating the soot were brown, and that dark coloration allowed further absorption of light, and therefore further warming the atmosphere around the smoke plume. The additional warming effects mean greater heating of the atmosphere enveloped in dark smoke from a wildfire, and understanding that heating effect is important for understanding climate change, Lack said. The extra heating also can affect cloud formation, air turbulence, winds and even rainfall. The discovery was made possible by state-of-the-art instruments developed by CIRES, NOAA and other scientists, Lack said. The instruments can capture fine-scale details about particles sent airborne by the fire, including their composition, shape, size, color and ability to absorb and reflect sunlight of various wavelengths. “With such well-directed measurements, we can look at the warming effects of soot, the magnifying coating and the brown oils and see a much clearer, yet still smoky picture of the effect of forest fires on climate,” Lack said. CIRES is a cooperative institute of CU-Boulder and NOAA.

24. November 2017/by GFMCadmin