diff --git a/Modules/FortranCInterface.cmake b/Modules/FortranCInterface.cmake
index aafecb4c3..c59e1f839 100644
--- a/Modules/FortranCInterface.cmake
+++ b/Modules/FortranCInterface.cmake
@@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
 # If the check fails and QUIET is not given the function terminates
 # with a FATAL_ERROR message describing the problem.  The purpose of
 # this check is to stop a build early for incompatible compiler
-# combinations.
+# combinations.  The test is built in the Release configuration.
 #
 # FortranCInterface is aware of possible GLOBAL and MODULE manglings
 # for many Fortran compilers, but it also provides an interface to
@@ -250,6 +250,7 @@ function(FortranCInterface_VERIFY)
     message(STATUS "${_desc}")
 
     # Build a sample project which reports symbols.
+    set(CMAKE_TRY_COMPILE_CONFIGURATION Release)
     try_compile(FortranCInterface_VERIFY_${lang}_COMPILED
       ${FortranCInterface_BINARY_DIR}/Verify${lang}
       ${FortranCInterface_SOURCE_DIR}/Verify
@@ -259,6 +260,9 @@ function(FortranCInterface_VERIFY)
                  "-DCMAKE_C_FLAGS:STRING=${CMAKE_C_FLAGS}"
                  "-DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS:STRING=${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS}"
                  "-DCMAKE_Fortran_FLAGS:STRING=${CMAKE_Fortran_FLAGS}"
+                 "-DCMAKE_C_FLAGS_RELEASE:STRING=${CMAKE_C_FLAGS_RELEASE}"
+                 "-DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELEASE:STRING=${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELEASE}"
+                 "-DCMAKE_Fortran_FLAGS_RELEASE:STRING=${CMAKE_Fortran_FLAGS_RELEASE}"
       OUTPUT_VARIABLE _output)
     file(WRITE "${FortranCInterface_BINARY_DIR}/Verify${lang}/output.txt" "${_output}")