Fires in Spain include NASA's main observatory, space communications complex evacuated

Spain declared a state of emergency because of natural fires, while some fires have been out of control near Madrid with evacuation orders for more than 60,000 people. The affected area includes Robledo de Chavela, a municipality near NASA's Deep Space Communications Complex.

Dramatic images captured by photographers showed radio telescopes surrounded by smoke and fire. A spokesman for NASA said in an email for W IRED that agency successfully evacuated all personnel.

They added that while the fire has now passed through the observatory complex, it remains unclear what impact the flames may have had on sensitive equipment inside.

Any possible damage will be assessed when it is safe to do this”, the spokesman said.

They add that if conditions allow, a country's assessment may be made as early as Saturday.

For now, NASA said it has safely transferred “support for mission operations at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California, ensuring continued service and continued support for spacecraft communications”.

Targets in Spain, along with others in Canberra, Australia and Goldstone, California, make up what NASA calls the world's largest and most sensitive telecommunications system”. The network allows NASA to transmit information from Earth to spacecraft, including the most remote object created by man in our solar system, Voyager 1. It is also used to transfer data from James Webb Space Telescope and send commands to other space tools. Oh, and pages also contribute to radio-astronomies surveillance. It is simply a very important collection of instruments to understand the solar system.

Spain is not the only country facing a fire crisis. The flames are burning out of control even in France.

“In the middle of the afternoon we learned that, after the change of wind, the fire had become a major and sufficient fire, which is extremely difficult to bring under”, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.

Europe has seen record high temperatures this summer caused by repeated heat domes rising above the continent and the United Kingdom, as well as climate change. Hot weather can dry vegetation, preparing forests to burn when hit by a strange spark. Similar stories have been developed in other parts of the world recently, from Ontario, Canada, to the Pacific Northwest in the United States.

The freshest weather is expected to come to the Mediterranean over the weekend, which should help firefighters control the flames. But this period of rest will be brief. The temperatures are expected to rise again on Monday and continue to rise throughout the week, eventually reaching up to 10 degrees Celsius above normal.

This can exacerbate any fire in Spain or France that may still be burning or help fuel new fires.