Almost 500 arrested on suspicion of starting wildfires in France this summer

One person killed and hundreds evacuated in Croatia as blazes also hit Germany, Greece and Spain

Almost 500 people have been arrested on suspicion of starting wildfires in France since the start of the summer, authorities have said, as firefighters in half a dozen European countries tackle ferocious blazes amid a record-breaking heatwave.

A fire engulfed ⁠homes in a Croatian holiday resort on Friday, killing one person, injuring 40 and forcing 1,200 to evacuate, officials said, as the EU warned that pockets of “very extreme” wildfire conditions stretched across the continent.

Hundreds more people were evacuated from villages in western Germany and south-west France, while stranded holidaymakers were picked up from beaches threatened by flames in Greece, and the army rescued historic relics in Spain.

With three in five Europeans facing temperatures of at least 30C on Friday and about 150 million enduring 35C or more, France’s interior ministry said 474 people, including 183 minors, had been detained over wildfires in the country since 1 July.

About 70% of those arrested were suspected of deliberately starting fires and the rest of doing so accidentally. French media said a 15-year-old boy had been detained in connection with a fire near Bordeaux airport that killed two firefighters in July.

French authorities on Friday evacuated more than 525 people from the village of Luglon in the south-west region of Landes after a new wildfire tore through almost 1,100 hectares (2,700 acres) of tinder-dry pine forest in less than 24 hours.

“The situation is unfavourable and the fire remains raging,” Gilles Clavreul, a regional official, told reporters, ​adding that 500 firefighters were tackling ‌the flames and six water-dumping aircraft ‌had been sent to assist. Roads to the village were closed.

Luglon is about 62 miles (100km) south-east of the popular holiday destinations of Arcachon Bay and the Lège-Cap-Ferret peninsula where two huge wildfires destroyed more than 50,000 hectares in late July, forcing the evacuation of as many as 220,000 people .

Scientists say climate breakdown is causing more frequent and more extreme weather events, evaporating soils and waterways, fuelling wildfires and leading to thousands of excess deaths in France. Europe is heating at about twice the global average rate.

The EU’s Copernicus climate change service warned in its weekly outlook of “very extreme” conditions across a ​large area of central and eastern Europe, with other pockets over southern Britain, Ireland, northern France and southern Sweden.

The average high across western Europe on ‌Friday was forecast to be 31.2C, which is 8C above what was typical from 1961 to 1990, data from the Reuters Climate Monitor showed. The temperature for Europe as a whole was 1.6C above the 1961-1990 norm.

In western Germany, more than 2,000 people fled their homes early on Friday morning to take shelter in a nearby primary school after a ⁠wildfire in the nearby Hürtgen forest spread to within a few hundred metres of the village of Gey.

“This forest fire threatens to hit the local ‌community hard,” Mona Neubaur, the deputy premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, posted on social media. Unexploded second world war ordnance was also hampering firefighting efforts.

The news agency dpa reported explosions could be heard as munitions detonated in the flames, forcing firefighters to stay out of the area, not far from the Belgian border, for safety. German army tanks and helicopters were providing support.

In Croatia, a wildfire driven by strong winds descended on the tourist town of Lokva Rogoznica on the Dalmatian coast overnight. Police said they had located the body of one person while searching burned areas on Friday afternoon.

Emergency ​shelters opened in several nearby towns. Of 36 people treated by ambulance services in the city of Split, about 15.5 miles to the north, 14 were admitted to hospital and seven had life-threatening injuries, local health officials said.

“It was a strong fire, it swept everything on ‌its way ... there has been huge material damage,” Slavko Tucaković, the regional chief fire commander, said on Friday, adding that the blaze appeared to have calmed by Friday morning.

The country’s prime minister, Andrej ‌Plenković, said on a visit to nearby Omiš, where the evacuees were sheltering in a sports hall, that the blaze was “one of the worst fires in recent years” but “most importantly” there were no confirmed fatalities so far.

In north-east Spain , an army unit removed the remains of three 11th-century Aragonese kings from the San Juan de la Peña monastery after it was threatened by a wildfire and took them to a ​museum in nearby Huesca.

The fire, which began on Monday, intensified on ⁠Thursday, authorities said, driven by higher temperatures and strong winds that have enabled it burn through more ​than 9,000 hectares, forcing ​the evacuation of 16 towns and villages.

A ​much larger wildfire in southern Spain also worsened on Thursday. It has so far burned 31,000 hectares in the province of Huelva and forced the evacuation of about 700 people.

In northern Greece, a fleet of small boats evacuated about 500 holidaymakers from beaches on Thursday as a forest fire threatened Siviri and Fourka, two popular resorts on the Halkidiki peninsula, south of the city of Thessaloniki.

The 2-mile-long fire front, with flames up to 30 metres (98ft) high, was brought under control later in the day, the regional civil protection chief said, though crews remained on alert for flare-ups. Two injured firefighters were taken to hospital, the fire service added.

A maximum level-five alert for fires was issued for much of the Greek mainland and local officials in Halkidiki have banned access to the region’s dense pine forests. Winds of up to 62 mph are forecast for Friday.

In the UK, wildfires raced across the West Midlands , burning several houses to the ground in “one of the most significant” incidents the region’s fire service has ever had to deal with, the regional fire chief, Simon Tuhill, said.

Reuters and Agence-France Press contributed to this report