The agreement will be signed at the U.S. Embassy in Lisbon between the National Interagency Coordination Center and the Agency for Integrated Rural Fire Management (AGIF).

The U.S. Embassy in Lisbon considers the signing of this memorandum of understanding "an important milestone in U.S.-Portugal collaboration in the management of rural fires."

"Following similar highly successful agreements between the United States and Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico, this memorandum of understanding will help prevent and combat the devastating fires that affect, every year, both the United States and Portugal. This agreement will allow for faster sharing of resources to fight rural fires, ranging from joint training on firefighting, research on fire prevention and risk reduction, and recovery of soil and water after fires," an embassy statement said.

According to the release, the United States is already helping AGIF develop a training strategy in command and control of operations focused on rural fires, and in October 2022, experts from the U.S. Forest Service spent two weeks in Serra da Estrela with officials from the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF) to rehabilitate more than 303,000 square kilometres of fire-damaged land and restore water sources drinking for 2.5 million people in Portugal.

Under this memorandum, other entities from both countries, involved in fighting rural fires, will be able to cooperate directly, sharing good practices and the most advanced technical and scientific knowledge.

For AGIF, this memorandum aims to strengthen cooperation between the two countries in the areas of providing mutual assistance in rural fire management, information sharing, training and training, research and innovation, and exchange of resources for fire suppression.

AGIF also indicates that, through this memorandum of understanding, Portuguese entities can not only collect the best experiences for their areas of activity, but also transmit their best practices to the North American entities.