SAINTE-MAXIME (France) July 29: Firefighters on Tuesday struggled to contain fast-moving fires that have killed five people and ravaged large areas of woodland in southern France, as President Jacques Chirac promised tough penalties for arsonists.
Some 1,700 firefighters were focusing their attention on a wide swathe of territory in the picturesque Maures hills of the Var region just off the French Riviera coast, near the fashionable resort town of Saint-Tropez.
By late afternoon authorities said the blazes — which forced thousands to flee their homes — had largely been brought under control, but firefighters battled to control one fire still raging near the town of Draguignan.
Water-carrying aircraft were deployed to help douse the fires, which broke out in force on Monday and have come during an exceptionally hot and dry summer in much of southern and central Europe.
For the first time, France was forced to call in foreign reinforcements. With Italian firefighters already on the scene, Paris also rented five water-dropping aircraft from Moscow, which headed to the zone on Tuesday.
Amid signs that some of the fires may have been started deliberately, Chirac said during a visit to French Polynesia that anyone found responsible would face “punishment of exceptional severity.”
Visiting the region, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday that authorities would “show no mercy to people who start fires, including those who do so out of carelessness”, describing the blazes as an “ecological massacre”.
Justice Minister Dominique Perben said identity checks would be carried out in high-risk areas in order to deter would-be arsonists.
Two British nationals — identified as 63-year-old Margaret Timson and her 15-year-old granddaughter Kirsty Edgerton — were found burned to death on Monday in woods outside the village of La Garde-Freinet.
A 76-year-old Dutch woman, whose body was found in the coastal town of Sainte-Maxime, and a 72-year-old Polish man were also killed, French officials said.
On the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, where brush fires also broke out on Monday near the southern town of Bonifacio, a 49-year-old man died after suffering severe burns while trying to save his home.—AFP