A heroic man trying to save his village from wildfires ravaging the north Spain had to flee the flames after his tractor was engulfed, leaving him badly burned.
The terrifying video shows the moment Angel Martin Arjona – who was using an excavator to dig a trench around his village – was caught in the fast-spreading fire in Tabara, near Zamora, 80km west of Valladolid.
For a moment, the vehicle disappears completely behind a wall of flames before the man emerges – his clothes are burning off as he runs – and is able to make his way to safety. He has since been taken to the hospital with burns.
It was a lucky escape from one of dozens of fires burning across Spain that have already killed two people – a 62-year-old firefighter and a 69-year-old shepherd – in the worst heatwave in at least 15 years.
Across Zamora, around 6,000 people have had to be evacuated from 32 towns as blazes threaten their homes, while blazes are also spiraling out of control north of Barcelona and in the region of Galicia – where a railway line remains closed today after a train was nearly shut down on Monday consumed by the flames.
Two huge fires are also burning in southern France, in the Gironde, where more than 30,000 people have now been driven from their homes. Fires are also blazing in Portugal and Greece.
It comes as Europe smolders through a heatwave that has broken temperature records across the continent and is still sweeping its way north – with the UK almost certainly beating its all-time temperature record today.
Western France scorched in the heat yesterday, with records being broken along the coast – 40C (104F) in Brest, 42C (108F) in Nantes, 42.4C (108F) in the Gironde and 42.6 °C (109 °F) in Landes were all unprecedented.
A heatwave that roiled Europe spread north into Britain on Monday, fueling wildfires in Spain and France that evacuated thousands of people and scrambled depth-bomb planes and firefighters to battle blazes in tinder-dry woods.
Two people have been killed in the blaze in Spain, which the Spanish Prime Minister linked to global warming, saying “climate change kills”.
This figure comes on top of the hundreds of heat-related deaths reported in the Iberian Peninsula as high temperatures have gripped the continent in recent days and sparked wildfires from Portugal to the Balkans. Some areas, including northern Italy, are also experiencing extended droughts. Climate change is making such life-threatening extremes less rare – and heatwaves have occurred even in places like the UK bracing for possible record-breaking temperatures.
Hot weather in Britain was expected to be so severe this week that train operators warned it could warp the rails and some schools set up paddling pools to help children cool off.
Heat records were broken in France and churning hot winds complicated firefighting in the south-west of the country.
“The fire is literally exploding,” said Marc Vermeulen, the regional fire chief, who described logs shattering as the flames consumed them, throwing burning embers into the air and the flames continuing to spread.
“We are facing extreme and extraordinary circumstances,” he said.
Authorities evacuated more cities and relocated another 14,900 people from areas that could get in the way of the fires and choking smoke. In total, more than 31,000 people have been displaced from their homes and summer resorts in the Gironde region since the wildfires began on July 12.
Three more planes were sent to join six others to fight the fires, scoop up seawater and repeatedly fly through thick plumes of smoke, the Home Office said Sunday night.
More than 200 reinforcements were on their way to join the 1,500 firefighters trying to contain the blaze in the Gironde, where the blaze was approaching prized vineyards and smoke was billowing across the Arcachon sea basin, famous for its oysters and beaches.
Spain, meanwhile, reported a second death in two days in its own blazes. The body of a 69-year-old sheep farmer was found on Monday in the same hilly area where a 62-year-old firefighter died a day earlier when he was engulfed by flames in northwestern Zamora province. More than 30 wildfires across Spain have forced the evacuation of thousands of people and blackened 220 square kilometers (85 sq mi) of forest and scrub.
Passengers on a train through Zamora got a scary, close-up glimpse of a fire as their train stopped in the countryside. Video of the unscheduled – and worrying – stop showed about a dozen passengers in a railcar who were alerted as they looked out windows at the flames encroaching on both sides of the track.
Climate scientists say heatwaves are more intense, frequent and prolonged due to climate change – and together with droughts have made fighting wildfires harder. They say climate change will make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
“Climate change is killing,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Monday during a visit to the Extremadura region, where three major blazes were raging. “It kills people, it kills our ecosystems and biodiversity.”
Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for ecological transition, described her country as “literally under attack” while attending climate change talks in Berlin.
She warned of “still frightening prospects for the coming days” – after more than 10 days with temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius and only moderate cooling at night.
At least 748 heat-related deaths were reported in the heatwave in Spain and neighboring Portugal, where temperatures hit 47C (117F) earlier this month.
Spain’s heatwave was forecast to ease on Tuesday, but respite will be brief as temperatures rise again on Wednesday, particularly in the arid western Extremadura region.
In the UK, officials have issued the first-ever extreme heat warning and the Weather Service forecast the record high of 38.7C (101.7F) set in 2019 could be broken.
“Forty-one is not out of the question,” said Met Office CEO Penelope Endersby. “We even have some 43s in the model, but we’re hoping it won’t be that high.”
France’s often-temperate region of Brittany sweltered with a record 39.3C (102.7F) in the port of Brest, surpassing a high of 35.1C that had stood since September 2003, French weather service Meteo said -France.
Regional records in France were broken in over a dozen cities as the weather service said Monday was “the hottest day of this heatwave”.
The Balkan region was expecting its worst heat later this week but has already seen sporadic wildfires.
Early Monday, Slovenian authorities said firefighters had brought a blaze under control. Croatia sent a water-dropping plane there to help after struggling with its own wildfires along the Adriatic Sea last week. A fire in Sibenik forced some people to leave their homes but was later extinguished.
In Portugal, much cooler weather on Monday helped firefighters make headway. More than 600 firefighters were involved in four major fires in northern Portugal.
