Firefighters in Portugal have brought most of the severe fires that were plaguing the country over the last week under control, but high temperatures, gusty winds, and the threat of electrical storms this coming weekend mean the danger has not yet passed, and a few of the fires still burning (marked with red dots in this image) are proving difficult to contain. This false-color image of the fires and the burned areas (dark reddish brown) was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite on August 7, 2003. Fires are scattered across northern Portugal (left) and Spain (right), while a large burn scar is evident in central Portugal.
The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS’ maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters.
Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
