A man suffered serious burns when his improvised dwelling in a wooded area of Fort Dodge caught fire early Wednesday morning.

”He was lucky to escape out of there,” Fire Chief Steve Hergenreter said.

The man was initially treated at UnityPoint Health — Trinity Regional Medical Center. He was then taken to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. Hergenreter said he was suffering from very serious burns on his upper body.

He said the man had been living in a ”tent-like structure” made of wood and other materials that was in the woods between Mason Memorial Drive and Kenyon Road. The man had a campfire burning and the flames spread to that structure while he was inside, according to Hergenreter.

The man got out of the blazing structure and made his way to Kenyon Road, where someone who was driving by spotted him.

The incident was reported at 1:28 a.m.

Responding police officers and firefighters had two emergency scenes to deal with — the injured man near the Kenyon Road Bridge and a fire visible from the east end of the bridge.

Firefighters found the burning structure in the woods about 200 feet from Mason Memorial Drive. Hoselines were stretched from the road into the woods to extinguish the flames.

Hergenreter said the crew of firefighters who responded to Wednesday morning’s incident had encountered the same man previously. They had been dispatched to a report of a fire in the woods and found that it was the man’s campfire.