A PLANE THAT was battling forest fires in northern Portugal has crashed, killing its pilot, the country’s civil defence said.

No one else was on board the single-engine airtanker that plunged to its end near Vila Nova de Foz Coa as it was trying to put out flames in the Braganca region.

“It is with great dismay that I have learned of the death of the pilot flying the plane that crashed while putting out a fire,” Prime Minister Antonio Costa wrote on Twitter.

Firefighters have been battling blazes in Portugal, where temperatures hit a July record of 47 Celsius yesterday before dropping slightly today.

The civil defence late this evening said 900 firefighters were still battling around 10 fires across the country.

A heatwave has left much of southwestern Europe sweltering over the past week.

Yesterday, two people were killed after a firefighting helicopter carrying four crew members crashed into the sea off Greece.

Science shows that heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense due to climate change. 

The impacts of climate change are already causing severe and widespread disruption around the world and the IPCC has said drastic action is needed to avoid mounting loss of life, biodiversity and infrastructure.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has also warned that global heating is virtually certain to pass 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, probably within a decade.