Huge plumes of fire, intense heat, lack of visibility: A Portuguese journalist filmed and commented on his journey Wednesday night through a raging fire as he drove along the country’s main highway, amid the heat wave and fires from the forests.

“I didn’t expect this situation,” Rui Tukayana, a reporter for the Portuguese radio station TSF, breathes at the wheel of his car as he films a two-kilometre trip on the A1 highway, near ‘Aveiro (north) on his phone.

On both sides of the track, the vegetation is consumed by an intense night fire, still active on Thursday afternoon and fought by about 400 firefighters.

13,500 hectares burned in Portugal

Amid the crackling of flames several meters high, creating a tunnel of fire, the journalist describes a “dangerous” scenario, explaining that he decides to close the windows of his car because it is “very hot”, or that he does not see “anything”. due to smoke generated by the fire.

Finally, he made it through the fire and heaved a huge sigh of relief as he approached the exit that should allow him to get to Aveiro from Porto (north). A few minutes after its passage, traffic will be temporarily interrupted on this section of the A1 motorway.

Hit for a week by the heat wave that has meanwhile reached other Western European countries, Portugal has recorded temperatures above 40°C in many regions, and even exceeded 45°C in some places. Fanned by scorching heat, the fires of the last week have left one dead and some 60 injured, 860 people evacuated and some 60 homes destroyed or damaged.

According to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), the largest fires have devastated an area of ​​some 13,500 hectares in Portugal in recent days.