Two firefighters have been k!lled in Spain and Portugal, authorities said on Monday, as wildfires ravage the Iberian Peninsula during a sweltering heatwave.
Both died in road accidents, taking the de@th toll to two in Portugal and four in Spain since the fires broke out.
Spain is in the grips of a third week of heatwave alerts, with the emergency services, backed by specialist army units, battling fires in the north-west and west of the country.
Neighbouring Portugal has also been trying to put out fires across the country, and both nations have appealed to the European Union for assistance.
The regional government in Castile and Leon, north-western Spain, wrote on X that one firefighter was k!lled when his emergency vehicle flipped over on a steep forest road.
"For an unknown reason, the vehicle approached the embankment and overturned, falling down a steep slope," it added.
Fires across Spain have destroyed more than 70,000 hectares of land in recent days – just under half of the total area burnt in the country so far this year, the European Forest Fire Information System said.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited one of the affected regions on Sunday and promised "a national pact" to deal with the climate emergency.
Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said a firefighter died on Sunday and two of his colleagues were seriously injured.
The latest de@th comes after a former mayor in Guarda, eastern Portugal, was killed fighting a fire on Friday.
On Monday morning, about 2,000 firefighters were deployed across northern and central Portugal, with about half mobilised to try to douse flames in the town of Arganil.
Portugal, where about 185,000 hectares of land have been destroyed by wildfire since the start of the year, is expecting the arrival of two water-bombing aircraft to help teams on the ground.
The devastation is has already eclipsed the 136,000 hectares destroyed last year, according to provisional data from the country's forestry institute.
