STRUNGA, Romania – An ambulance from Bacău County caught fire while driving on a national highway in eastern Romania on Thursday, but the medical crew managed to escape safely, authorities said.
The incident occurred on National Road DN28, near the town of Strunga in Iași County, while the ambulance was returning from the city of Iași after transferring a patient to a medical facility.
According to initial information, the fire broke out while the vehicle was in motion. The crew noticed the flames and immediately stopped the ambulance, evacuating before the vehicle was fully engulfed.
Emergency teams from the Târgu Frumos Firefighters Detachment were quickly dispatched to the scene and worked to contain and extinguish the blaze, preventing it from spreading further. No injuries were reported.
The ambulance, a Renault vehicle manufactured in 2019 with approximately 680,000 kilometers on the odometer, belonged to the ambulance service in the city of Onești, Bacău County.
At the time of the incident, the crew consisted of nurse Simion Claudia-Cătălina and ambulance driver Crăciun Costel-Viorel. Before the fire intensified, the two managed to remove oxygen cylinders from the vehicle, eliminating the risk of a possible explosion.
They also recovered several pieces of medical equipment, including a defibrillator, emergency backpack, medical kits, an infusion pump, and the stretcher. Personal belongings left in the medical compartment were destroyed in the fire.
Firefighters from the Iași County Inspectorate for Emergency Situations later extinguished the flames.
Ambulance service representatives said the incident highlights the heavy use of emergency vehicles, which often operate continuously from one shift to another and are frequently driven on difficult rural roads.
“We want to avoid becoming victims while trying to save others,” representatives of the ambulance crew said, expressing hope that this will be the last incident of its kind.
