Sounds like Croatia is copping it as well...
http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Firefighters-die-battling-Croatian-fire/2007/08/31/1188067317169.htmlFive firefighters died and 14 were injured on Thursday evening as they were encircled by a forest fire on Croatia's central island of Kornati, the state-run news agency HINA and other local media reported.
Police in the nearby city of Sibenik only confirmed that 14 firefighters were injured at the island of Kornat and there was no immediate official confirmation of the deaths, which were reported by HINA, the state-run Croatian television and two other TV channels.
Zeljko Sosa, a local firefighting official, said the wind apparently suddenly changed its course, spreading the fire that then trapped the firefighters inside the firing circle.
Private TV RTL said all five dead were members of the local volunteer firefighting brigade and that they were in their 20s.
Among the 14 injured, four are in a life-threatening condition, said a doctor on duty in the clinic in Zadar, a city on the coast across from Kornat where most of the injured are being treated. He spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
Prime Minister Ivo Sanader was heading to Zadar to visit those injured overnight, the government said in a statement.
The fire was still raging on the island, which has only hundreds of residents.
Croatia has battled a record number of fires this summer, but mostly only in forests.
Before Thursday's incident at Kornat, a firefighter who died on Wednesday while putting down the fire on another island was the only casualty of those fires.
