forest fire in portugal

http://news.sky.com/story/dozens-killed-in-portuguese-forest-fires-10918978

terrible ..........61 dead so far

Amongst the death and carnage, there have been stories of miracle escapes,1 familiy sheltered in a water storage tank.
A harrowing way to die.

Oh these fires are horrendous. The most horrible way to go. I have a real dread of fire.

A water-bombing plane has crashed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-plane-crash-fires-canadair-water-bombing-latest-news-updates-a7799621.html

It's now not clear if a plane did crash.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40348252

That forest was a eucalypt plantation...

Eucalypts originate on only one continent --  those eucalypts planted out in Europe, Africa and the Americas were originally imported from Australia..

On news footage of those fires, that plantation has obviously been neglected (or even abandoned?),  as it was overgrown, trees growing right up against the road, trees not thinned out, no access roads for the firefighters  --  all of which combined will have made conditions even worse, and harder to contain, no matter what the actual cause was..

While the worst regions for bushfires are in Tasmania and Victoria --  with New South Wales, and the familiar north-western parts of the USA and Canada, coming in a close second --  there are several areas of dry and arid places in Spain, Portugal, and southern France that aren't far behind.  There are also parts of central Russia, along with farmer-ignited fires in Indonesia, that are up there with the top-ranked countries for the worst forest fires.

Record temperatures and ongoing droughts.  Mismanaged, abandoned, even inappropriate plantations. Inadequate roads and water supplies. People living too close to dense forest areas.  All of these factors could conceivably be contributing to that runaway inferno..