Video: With clothes on fire, man narrowly escapes death as he flees from Spanish wildfire

The Spanish man was treated for serious burns after escaping the wildfire. (Representative image)

A Spanish man trying to protect his town from a wildfire had a close brush with death on Monday when the blaze engulfed his digger, forcing him to run for his life while patting out flames on his clothes.

Angel Martin Arjona had been digging a trench in a field to stop the approaching fire reaching the northwestern town of Tabara when the sea of flames closed in on him.

Reuters footage showed him driving fast before taking a turn near a fence. Seconds later his machine disappeared from sight, surrounded by high flames and smoke.

Arjona ran out of the flames, stumbled and fell, then kept running, his trousers still burning and a firefighter in protective gear following him.

The owner of a construction warehouse, was taken to hospital by helicopter with serious burns after his dramatic escape, his friend, mechanic Juan Lozano, told Reuters.

"It could have burnt everything, absolutely everything. It did not because there are good professionals and people who have the balls to protect us," Lozano said.

Wildfires ravage Spanish region twice in a month

Just a month after a huge wildfire ravaged Spain's northwestern province of Zamora, flames are once again consuming swathes of the region as locals helplessly watch their land being destroyed.

This insane #wildfire was caused by the heatwave in Spain...
Tomorrow is too late to prevent climate change from causing more catastrophes... It's now or never ! #ClimateEmergency #TiredEarth pic.twitter.com/NqYTOJW6Ac

— Debbie_banks (@Debbie_banks30) July 16, 2022

A column of smoke can be seen some 30 kilometres (18 miles) away as it billows into the sky, obscuring the landscape.

Antonio Puga cried as he observed the desolate scene, saying he felt "desperate and helpless" as flames surrounded his village of Pumarejo de Tera.

"We could have avoided all this," said Puga, who is in his sixties.

Read more: In pics: Wildfires burn through France, Portugal and Morocco

In front of him fires devour the fields, making them crackle. A relentless wind revives embers and ignites pine trees.

A helicopter ferried water from a nearby river and dumped it on the smouldering fields.

Some 6,000 people from around 30 localities in this rural region have been evacuated from their homes since Sunday.