Fires in Portugal

Drought and a heatwave were making the job of Portugal's firefighters difficult in mid-July 2005. Although they contained numerous blazes that had been burning around the city of Porto for nearly a week, a large blaze in the Estrela Mountains in the center of the country was still burning on July 23, 2005, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over head and captured this image. Active fire locations that MODIS detected are outlined in red. The lower image of the pair shows vegetation in bright green, and the burned area in deep reddish brown. The actively flaming portions of the fire appear to glow in bright pink.

The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meter per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides this image at

additional resolutions.

References & Resources

NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team , GSFC

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July 23, 2005

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