Almost two thirds of forest and brush fires in Italy last year were caused by arson, according to the annual report from Italy's forest ranger service.
A total of 7,951 fires were reported to the forest ranger service in 2005 and although this represented a 19% increase over 2004, there was a 21% drop in acreage lost to fires, 47,575 hectares.
The report said this was thanks to swifter and more efficient response to forest and brush fires. Sardinia was the Italian region with the highest number of reported fires in 2005, 3,044, followed by Calabria with 818, Campania with 752 and Sicily with 690.
Sicily, however, was the region which lost the most acreage to fire, 3,815 hectares, followed by Liguria with 3,380 hectares and then Sardinia with 3,176 hectares. Veneto was the region which lost the least land to fires, 31 hectares from 48 reported fires.
According to the forest ranger report, 64.5% of last year's forest and brush fires were cases or arson and another 14.4% were suspect, while only 0.6% could be blamed on natural causes and 0.9% were caused accidentally.
