A Spanish man in his 50s is being treated for serious burns after escaping flames that engulfed his excavator while trying to fight one of the wildfires raging in the northwestern region of Castile and Leon.
Video footage of the incident, which happened near the town of Tabara in Zamora province on Monday afternoon, showed the vehicle engulfed in flames and disappearing in a plume of smoke.
Seconds later, the man emerges from the inferno with his clothes in tatters and flames flickering down his back. After tripping and getting back up, he manages to free himself from the flames.
Regional emergency services reported that the man had suffered serious burns. After being treated at a local medical center, he was taken by helicopter to the Rio Hortega University Hospital in Valladolid.
Although temperatures in Spain are dropping as an eight-day heat wave ends, dozens of wildfires – many of which are still burning – have ravaged almost 30,000 hectares (75,000 acres) of land in the country.
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On Monday, the regional government of Castile and Leon said the body of a 69-year-old man, said to be a shepherd, had been found in a burned area near the small town of Escober de Tabara in Zamora. The previous day, authorities in the region also confirmed the death of a firefighter, 62-year-old Daniel Gulon Vara.
Speaking during a visit to the southwestern region of Extremadura on Monday morning, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez paid tribute to all those fighting the forest fires and said the events of the past few days were further evidence of the deadly effects of the climate crisis .
“I want to make something very clear,” he said. “Climate change kills: it kills people, as we have seen; it is also killing our ecosystem, our biodiversity and it is also destroying the things that we as a society hold dear – our houses, our businesses, our livestock.”
Another video taken on Monday showed distraught passengers on a train caught between two lines of forest fire as it stopped en route from Madrid to the northwestern town of Ferrol.
Heat wave in Spain: passengers stuck on train surrounded by forest fires – video
“It was really scary to see how quickly the fire spread,” Francisco Seoane, who shot the video, told The Associated Press. “In the blink of an eye, a new bush started burning. It was a matter of seconds. Suddenly it was night and we even smelled smoke.
Spain’s national rail company Renfe said no passengers were in danger.
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