Forest fires: Police question two more suspects

Prosecutors are questioning two more suspects who they said displayed “bizarre behaviour” in the French Riviera where forest fires believed to have been started deliberately killed four people, including two British people.

Meanwhile, state prosecutor Michel Raffin said Stephane Jousse, 29, of Figanieres, was under investigation for starting nine fires in the area earlier this year but was not suspected of setting off this week’s blazes.

Raffin said Jousse had admitted to having the urge to set fires. He faces 10 years in prison and a €156,000 fine if convicted.

Stunned holidaymakers sorted through their blackened belongings last night while firefighters battled to contain the last of nearly 30 fires that tore through the foothills of the Riviera this week. Officials said they suspected arson.

The blazes, fuelled by parched undergrowth, transformed the picturesque and touristic region between Toulon and Nice into an ashen moonscape dotted with tree stumps.

Weary fire crews were concentrating on a remaining blaze moving through the craggy, brush-covered hills east of Draguignan, about 25 miles from the fashionable resort of Cannes.

Heat, wind and jagged terrain made for a tough fight yesterday against the flames in an area where some 28 separate, near-simultaneous fires broke out two days earlier, and firefighters warned that further fires could erupt if a three-month dry spell continued, part of a drought stretching as far as north-east Italy.

“This area is a tinder box of dried vegetation,” said Col Eric Martin of the regional Var rescue squad, adding that the flames were advancing at 2.5mph and his men were suffering from dehydration.

Fires were also reported elsewhere in southern France, the Mediterranean island of Corsica and Portugal. Near Salon-de-Provence, about 25 miles north west of the port city of Marseilles, nine firefighters were injured.

Up to 24,700 acres of land have gone up in flames since the start of the Riviera infernos, making them the worst in a generation, fire officials said. Scores of homes have been damaged or destroyed, some 20,000 people temporarily evacuated and four people were killed.

Officials said that they were looking into arson as a possible cause of the blazes after soft drink bottles made into Molotov cocktails were found scattered in the region.

Elsewhere, Pierre Giolitto, a 71-year-old historian and author, returned to his villa in the posh French resort village of Les Issambres to find his street lined with smouldering fires.

His roof collapsed, water pipes burst and the second floor was a heap of broken terracotta tiles, but Giolitto said the worst part was the damage to his rare book collection and his computer, which held the only copy of a 500-page manuscript that he had nearly finished.

“Even talking about it makes me come to tears,” he said. “This home has been the work of my life – I put my whole life into it.”