A pilot has died after a firefighting aircraft crashed while battling a massive forest fire in southeastern Poland that has already burned through hundreds of hectares of protected woodland near the Ukrainian border.
The blaze erupted on Tuesday afternoon in Solska Forest, near the village of Kozaki in Biłgoraj County, Lublin province, and spread rapidly due to severe drought conditions, strong winds and extremely dry undergrowth.
By Wednesday evening, authorities said the fire had consumed around 500 hectares of forest.
Emergency services have that the situation remained difficult despite large-scale containment efforts.
The pilot was killed late on Tuesday after the Dromader firefighting plane lost contact with coordinators and crashed during operations around 9 PM.
Polish media identified the aircraft as a PZL M-18B Dromader, a single-engine firefighting plane.
According to Gazeta Wyborcza, the 65-year-old pilot had more than 19,000 hours of flying experience. The circumstances of the crash remain under investigation.
Poland’s interior minister, Marcin Kierwiński, said there was no indication that the fire had been started deliberately, attributing the rapid spread instead to exceptionally dry conditions.
“We’re dealing with a very dry period. Forests and conifers catch fire very easily, and fire spreads very easily,” he told Radio Zet.
The fire service deployed more than 100 emergency units, including around 460 firefighters, alongside over 100 police officers and 50 soldiers from Poland’s Territorial Defence Force. Several helicopters and airtanker aircraft were also mobilized, carrying out hundreds of water drops over the affected area.
Authorities said the intervention was complicated by extreme weather conditions, including high temperatures and wind gusts reaching 60 km/h, which repeatedly reignited parts of the fire and pushed flames through treetops.
Firefighters also faced logistical difficulties, such as weak water pressure and inaccessible terrain.
Two firefighters reportedly fainted from exhaustion during operations.
The Polish state fire service, Panstwowa Straż Pożarna (PSP), confirmed that a Sikorsky S-70i Black Hawk police helicopter equipped with a 3,000-litre “Bambi Bucket” had been deployed to tackle the most inaccessible sections of the blaze.
Wednesday evening, firefighting aircraft suspended operations for the night, though crews continued working on the ground. Captain Tomasz Stachyra of the Lublin fire service said authorities hoped calmer overnight winds would allow firefighters to suppress the blaze more effectively before aerial operations resumed Thursday morning.
“The wind has subsided. Firefighters will continue their operations overnight,” he said. “We want to suppress this fire as much as possible during the night hours, when wind conditions are favorable.”
The Government Centre for Security issued emergency alerts to residents in nearby municipalities including Łukowa, Józefów and Aleksandrów, warning people to keep windows shut due to heavy smoke drifting across the region. By Wednesday morning, residents reported smelling burning wood as far as 60 kilometres away.
Authorities also warned that preventive evacuations of several homes remained possible if smoke conditions worsened, although officials stressed that residential areas were still considered a safe distance from the flames.
The fire has reignited broader concerns about wildfire risks across Poland amid worsening drought conditions.
Climate and Environment Minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska said 136 forest fires were recorded across Poland on Tuesday alone, affecting both state and private woodland.
Forest-floor moisture levels in the Roztocze region have reportedly fallen to around 6%, comparable to dry paper, according to officials. In response, authorities have introduced forest access bans in several areas, expanded surveillance operations using drones and imposed strict restrictions on the use of open fire in forests and surrounding areas.
The Solska Forest area forms part of the broader Roztocze region, where national park authorities and local forest districts have now closed forested zones to the public until further notice.
Officials said the cause of the fire remains unknown, though investigators believe human activity may have played a role, as naturally occurring forest fires remain relatively rare in the region.
The fire started one day after the Catholic Feast of St. Florian, the patron saint of firefighters.
