Emil, a well-known Romanian vlogger, set out to reach El Camino de Santiago, but found himself in great danger. In a forest in Portugal, he was surprised by a huge fire that could have been fatal to him.
Forest fires have affected parts of Portugal. PHOTO: Pexels
Emil set out to reach El Camino de Santiago, a Christian pilgrimage route that leads to the tomb of the apostle James the Great, located in the crypt of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, in Spain. The Romanian from Portugal has already crossed several important stages. However, while he was near Porto, in a wooded area with several villages, he went through delicate moments. Everything could have ended badly, after Emil was caught in a huge fire. He filmed the whole thing and put the clip on his YouTube account.
Fires are quite common during the summer, in countries like Greece, Portugal or Spain. The dry vegetation due to the heat catches fire easily, and most of the time it is enough for the negligence of some locals to cause fires that consume entire kilometers of forest.
“Poor poor people”
At one point, already a day before going through his great adventure, the Romanian smelled smoke and saw flames in the distance.
“I don’t know if you can see it, but it’s full of wildfires. There is also ash in the air. And the detoured road”, said the vlogger as he looked for a place to stay.
Arriving in a village, he found with amazement that the only restaurant in the town was closed and he could not find anywhere to eat.
“Poor thing. And when I say very poor, I think of how my brother, in a village that, if it were in Romania, had at least 3 pubs at its size… They only have one, and that’s closed, the shutters are drawn, none chair, nothing. Yes, the owner has covid. Such poverty…”he also said.
And that’s when he again smelled smoke from the wildfires in the area. Flames immediately appeared on the horizon, and the situation looked as if it would worsen from moment to moment.
“You know I was telling you that there are some vegetation fires around here. Nah, see the smoke? It is close to us. And, theoretically, we must go in that direction tomorrow. Nasty moment. We’re going this way“, he added.
1,000 firefighters battled the flames
The next day, early in the morning, Emil said that the fire had spread, and the situation worsened overnight.
“There was smoke here all night and fire engines came by. Because I don’t know if you can see it, but the fire is getting closer. And last night I saw that it would be 2 km from here. So it’s a bad thing that the fire is very close. And all night long fire trucks passed by. I was looking on some news in the morning and understood that there were 50 fire trucks there. In total, about a thousand or so firefighters are geared up for this fire. It sucks bro. You see too“, said the Romanian.
On the way to Porto, in a wild area, he ran into a fire. More precisely, he woke up surrounded by flames.
“We still have today and tomorrow to go, and tomorrow afternoon we get to Porto. It should be nice there. I have nothing to say, I can’t say that it’s bad here either, but it’s a little wilder this way. And from Porto we only go to the coast where there will be shops and bars. And everything you want and accommodation, we don’t bother anymore Or so I think. Yes, but it’s bad. There’s a fire there. Yes friends, I’ll see you later. You see how thick it is here. She’s fat as hell. I laugh, but it’s no laughing matter. It’s a bad thing. And look what’s here too. How is he? God forbid. It’s… Yes. We see what happens. We move on. I will film if anything else happens. But it’s nasty around here“, continued Emil.
Surprised by the fire
A few minutes later, caught in the flames, the Romanian realized that the fire had trapped him. Desperate for the cause, he tried to turn out of the way to escape.
“You know what the biggest problem is? That everything you can see there is about 300 meters from me. And my way was there and I actually have nowhere to go. In this part as well, there are fires. In that part as well, this is where I had the road. Right here. I swear I don’t know what to do. I think I just have to go in the opposite direction, where there is no fire, to the first town, which is about 5 km away. And after trying to get a car, something, to get past this fire zone. To be able to get to that part. It’s… Yeah, I don’t know. I have no idea what I can do. I’m…I’m confused”the young man panicked.
His luck was that he found a local with a truck, who took him in the car and together they managed to escape. Arriving safely, 20 kilometers from the flames, the fire still looked threatening.
“I’ll let you know later what I do. Until then, I have to think about how I get out of here. Well, so I just found someone to drive me out of here. I saw a man, he waved at me and… he’s taking me from here, after the fire in that part. That he said he knew the way, he saw me with my backpack. That way everyone knows who makes trucks and all that. And I found him to get me out of here, to take me further, to get past the fire. Well, consider that I am now at this moment 20 kilometers away from that fire. And it still looks bad. Well, so you couldn’t get out through any part of that village, not even by car. I went in the opposite direction so I could get onto a highway where you could see… Didn’t you see on the footage? It was so dark. Indeed, he couldn’t see well on the street from that smoke. Horror. If we left on foot, the job was over. Good thing I got out of there“, admitted Emil.
