I am reporting a bug in emacs version 24.5.1.  It appears both on a
mac an on a linux machine.

Some functions in fortran fixed-format mode, with lines exceeding 72
columns (132 for example), still assume a 72 column width, independent
of the value of variable fortran-line-length

In particular sexp operations like (forward-sexp) assume characters
past 72 columns are comments.

Consider the attached "example.f" :  Read the file with
emacs -Q  example.f

Change variable  fortran-line-length :
(set-variable (quote fortran-line-length) 132 nil)

so that now:
(describe-variable (quote fortran-line-length))

returns:
fortran-line-length is a variable defined in `fortran.el'.
Its value is 132
Original value was 72
Local in buffer example.f; global value is 72


Move the point just after test1, so it precedes the first expression (..).
In this case forward-sexp works as expected.

Move the point just after test2, so it precedes the second expression (..).
In this case forward-sexp fails to find the end of the expression.
Note also that "twelve)" is highlighted as though it is a comment.

This problem does not appear in emacs 21.4


-- 
Professor Mark van Schilfgaarde       Tel. +44 (0)207 848 7246
Department of Physics                       Fax. +44 (0)20 7848 2420
King's College London                       e-mail:
Mark.vanSchilfgaarde@gmail.com
Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK        http://www.kcl.ac.uk/physics