"I feel I had bad luck because shortly after being appointed... the wave of fires started," Joaquim Leal Martins told state radio RDP after he sent his resignation letter to Interior Minister Antonio Figueiredo Lopes.

He is the first official to resign in the wake of the wildfires, which ravaged Portugal almost non-stop between late July and mid-September and caused damaged estimated at more than one billion euros (dollars).

Fires burned nearly 386,000 hectares (950,000 acres) of forest and scrubland between January 1 and September 21, much of it during a heatwave which swept Europe last month, according to the latest tally by the agriculture ministry.

This is the largest area of Portugal, one of the European Union's poorest members, hit by fires since records began in 1980.

The government appointed Leal Martins, a naval engineer by training who had no experience in firefighting or civil protection, to the position in April.

His nomination was strongly contested at the time by Portugal's two main associations of firefighters, which argued the 59-year-old did not have the right experience to head the National Firefighter and Civil Protection Service.

Both associations boycotted Leal Martins' swearing-in ceremony on April 2 and firefighters threatened to strike in protest over his appointment.

While the wildfires were still raging, a number of local officials in some of the worst-affected areas accused Leal Martins of running an uncoordinated battle against the flames.

Criticism of Leal Martins increased last week after private television SIC reported that local officials in the central town of Lamego had used a water-dropping helicopter -- hired to help fight the fires -- for pleasure trips.

TERRA.WIRE