Sicily on Thursday remained in the grips of a fire emergency which has so far claimed the lives of three people.
Firefighters and army units were tackling dozens of major blazes on the southern island, including one in the northern coastal town of Patti which engulfed a hilltop holiday farm on Wednesday, killing the three.
Seventeen other people were injured in the farm fire, several of them seriously.
The victims were a 51-year-old man and a 58-year-old woman who were at the farm for a birthday celebration and a 39-year-old mother who worked as a waitress and assistant cook at the establishment.
Survivors and witnesses complained that rescue workers had been too slow in arriving and that the three could have been saved if help had arrived more quickly.
Although firefighters worked through the night, the fire in Patti still extended for some 20 kilometres on Thursday.
Investigators said it was started deliberately and that a witness had come forward who had seen several men get out of a car near the holiday farm and set fire to a patch of woodland.
The fire alarm involved almost the entire northern coast of Sicily, from Trapani in the west to the port of Messina in the east, exacerbated by strong winds and soaring temperatures which exceeded 40 degrees Celsius in some areas.
Thousands of hectares of forest and woodland have been destroyed together with several homes and villas, and hundreds of people have had to be evacuated.
The scale of the emergency prompted Defence Minister Arturo Parisi to call in the army on Wednesday.
One of the worst-hit spots remained around the seaside town of Cefalu', where fires have been raging for three days.
The village of Gratteri near Cefalu' was thrown into panic on Thursday when it found itself surrounded on all sides by flames.
Local officials initially urged a total evacuation but prompt action by firefighting planes and helicopters eventually brought the situation back under control.
Serious blazes were also being tackled elsewhere in the south, particularly in the regions of Calabria, Puglia and Campania around Naples.
MOST FIRES DUE TO ARSON, OFFICIALS SAY. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said Italy was seeing one of the worst fire emergencies in years and that the number of blazes this summer was three times higher than the last.
It said protected parks and woodlands in particular were being targeted.
Arsonists have been blamed for most of the fires and Premier Romano Prodi on Thursday called for "the greatest severity" in punishing "such unthinkable crimes".
Justice Minister Clemente Mastella noted that convicted arsonists faced sentences of four-15 years, depending on the damage caused by their actions and whether any deaths were involved.
Suspicion usually focuses on farmers seeking to clear space for agricultural purposes or construction speculators hoping to win permits to build on protected land.
It is also sometimes claimed that firefighters themselves and seasonal workers with the Forestry Corps set fire to woods in the hope of creating new jobs, either battling the flames or working in reforestation programmes.
The head of Sicily's regional government, Salvatore Cuffaro, said in a radio interview on Thursday that he believed the island's current fire emergency was linked to the Forestry Corps.
"It could be members of the corps who want more work or overtime, or it could be people who want jobs with the corps and think that if the agency finds itself in an emergency, it will hire more workers," Cuffaro said.
He ruled out construction speculators, saying that it was against local laws to build on land that had been hit by fire.
But Italian environmental group Legambiente said fires were a money generating business and that local authorities rarely applied laws banning construction on fire land.
It also stressed that reforestation programmes were seen as money spinners.
Legambiente noted that reforestation operations in the region of Campania after the 2006 fires involved funds of almost two million euros and that this year's figure was likely to be double that.
Green MP and member of the parliament's anti-Mafia committee Tommaso Pellegrino called for reforestation funds to be closely monitored.
He also urged checks on private companies involved with any aspects of fire emergencies.
"There is a criminal plan behind the fires that are devastating the south and those who are in any way responsible must be found and punished," Pellegrino said.
According to a study presented by the University of Padua on Thursday, an average 55,000 hectares of Italian woodland are destroyed every year by fire at a cost of 500 million euros for the State, or 10 euros per citizen.
The government said on Thursday that it was releasing 5 million euros to deal with the current emergency.
