A 65-year-old man was run over and killed by his own bulldozer he was operating while fighting wildfires in Portugal.
In the northern region of the country, a man working for a company in Mirandela met with a tragic accident when he fell off his equipment and was hit as he attempted to flee rapidly advancing flames, according to local authorities.
The country has been battling blazes since late July, with the north and centre hardest hit.
More than 216,000 hectares have already gone up in smoke this summer, wiping out 2.3 per cent of Portugal’s land.
Two firefighters have died and more than 130 people have been injured, many of them emergency workers, according to Portuguese media.
On Sunday, while in a hurry to combat a blaze, a group of firefighters lost their lives when their vehicle plunged into a ravine. Meanwhile, in another area up north, a fire tornado proved fatal for a former mayor who was trying to protect his community.
The Vila Real mayor expressed last week, ‘We’re facing an immense challenge with damages beyond measure, and the resources at hand are inadequate for the vastness of the crisis we’re encountering.’
Meanwhile, in Spain, four people have died in wildfires as huge swathes of land have been left charred.
A man was run over and killed by his own bulldozer he was operating while fighting wildfires in Portugal. Picture for illustrative purposes
More than 216,000 hectares have already gone up in smoke this summer, wiping out 2.3 per cent of the country’s land
This week, it was reported that the 16 days of extreme heat that have fuelled the flames may have been behind more than 1,100 excess deaths.
In some areas, high temperatures above 45C were recorded.
More than 382,000 hectares of countryside have burned as authorities say this is now one of the worst wildfire seasons on record.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, during a visit to severely affected regions, urged the public to ‘remain extremely cautious,’ highlighting that ‘critical and challenging times persist.’
Spanish authorities have largely attributed the wildfires to lightning strikes typical in dry storms, but they also suspect that some fires have been deliberately set by arsonists.
Authorities say arson is suspected in a number of incidents, with 27 people arrested and dozens more under investigation.
The leader of the Castile and León region also suggested last week that arson may be behind the catastrophic fires, which forced more than 1,400 people to evacuate their homes.
So far, 188 investigations into the crime have resulted in the arrest of 32 people.
In Spain , four people have died in wildfires as huge swathes of land have been left charred
Turkey, where at lease 17 people have died, has declared multiple disaster zones as wildfires swept through its Mediterranean coast
Across Europe, thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes as they scramble to move out of the way of the raging flames.
The heatwave has also triggered deadly blazes in Greece, France, and Turkey, where at least 17 people have been killed.
Turkey has declared multiple disaster zones as wildfires swept through its Mediterranean coast.
In İzmir province, more than 50,000 people were displaced as the flames raged on under suffocating heat.
In Cyprus, two elderly people were killed as they tried to escape the wildfires in their car.
Officials in Albania have said an 80-year-old man died in a fire in Tirana.
In total, more than half a million hectares have burned across the European Union this summer, around two and a half times the usual average.
Fires have also been recorded in Italy, France, and Bulgaria, where two people have been reported dead.
