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Deaths as forest fires hit Europe
SAINTE-MAXIME, France -- At least five people have been killed and thousands evacuated as forest and brush fires hit a swathe of Europe from southeastern France to northern Portugal. In France, two towns were evacuated as the flames spread at a devastating pace, forcing tens of thousands of people to spend the night in temporary shelters. Officials speculated that the blazes -- about 30 broke out nearly simultaneously on Monday -- were criminal in origin. Firefighters found evidence of Molotov cocktails in the region, according to radio and television reports. By Tuesday, the local government in the Var region of France said the fires were under control, following a 24-hour battle by nearly 2,000 firefighters, Reuters reported. President Jacques Chirac warned that anyone who set fires in the tinderbox conditions would face "punishment of exceptional severity." Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who toured the region, called the fires "an ecological massacre." The mayor of Roquebrune-Sur-Argens, Luc Jousse, called the blazes -- which occurred during a spell of hot weather with little rain -- "a new form of terrorism." "It's the apocalypse," Jousse told LCI television. The charred bodies of two of the victims, a woman and her teenage granddaughter, were found Monday in woods near the village of La Garde Freinet in the Maures region, an area of densely forested low-lying hills near the Mediterranean coast. A Var official told The Associated Press that it appeared the two women, both from Britain, were trying to flee where they were staying near La Garde-Freinet by car when the fire killed them. A Polish man also died in the same area, officials said. A Dutch woman died while being transferred to a hospital by helicopter from Sainte-Maxime, near the up-market resort of St. Tropez. On the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, where fierce brush fires also broke out on Monday near the southern town of Bonifacio, a 49-year-old man died Tuesday after suffering severe burns while trying to save his home.
In Saint-Maxime, 3,000 people were evacuated to safety as the fire threatened the coastal town. More than 350 firemen fought the flames that reached the coastline on a front of several kilometers, whipped up by strong winds despite tons of water dropped from nine firefighting planes. Four firefighters have been injured, including one seriously. Thousands of people evacuated from the resort town of Frejus, 25 miles from Cannes, were bedded down in cots in an aircraft hangar at a nearby former military base. Seven fires threatened the town. In St. Tropez officials opened a gym to accommodate those stranded by the fires. Portugal appealed to Spain for help in tackling a giant forest fire in northern Portugal. Two hundred firefighters -- backed by four helicopters and six planes -- were hampered by high temperatures and strong winds. The fire began Sunday in a mountainous area 260 km north of Lisbon near Silvares. The heat wave and drought are expected to cost Europe millions, with shipping paralyzed, crops shriveled and electricity costs up. In Romania, dredgers dug into the Danube on Monday to deepen the river bed for hundreds of stalled barges, while in Croatia, 5 tons of dead fish polluted a lake. Weeks of heat and dryness also choked other parts of the Balkans. Croatia's major rivers -- the Sava, Drava, Kupa and Danube -- were reported at their lowest levels ever, threatening water and electricity shortages, while Serbia's ecology minister, Adjelka Mihajlov said his republic's major rivers were at their lowest in 100 years. Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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