LISBON (Reuters) -A Portuguese firefighter suffered severe burns on Thursday in one of the wildfires ravaging central and northern parts of the country when the blaze suddenly changed direction and engulfed his fire engine, the civil protection authority said.
A video posted online showed at least three firefighters in the Valverde area running away from rapidly advancing flames, fanned by gusts of wind, and leaving their vehicle behind. The next moment, a wall of fire completely shrouded the vehicle.
A medical helicopter was on the spot attending to the victim, whom authorities identified as the driver of the truck.
At least three people have been killed in Portugal’s wildfires over the past week. The blazes have burned 274,000 hectares (677,000 acres) of vegetation, according to estimates by the European Forest Fire Information System, nearly triple the annual average in 2006-2024.
It has been the most severe year for forest fires in the Iberian country since 2017, when two huge blazes months apart killed more than 100 people in central Portugal.
Most of Southern Europe is experiencing one of its worst wildfire seasons in two decades. Portugal’s neighbour Spain is also still struggling to put out several large blazes in western and northern parts of the country after a 16-day heatwave that ended on Monday.
Spain’s estimated burned area has exceeded 400,000 ha and is the largest on record going back to 2006.
(Reporting by Andrei Khalip; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
