10:53am UK, Sunday July 26, 2009

Three people have been arrested over wildfires on the island of Corsica, while flames continue to scorch parts of southern Europe.

Firefighters try to protect homes in the village of Aullene, Corsica

Two farmers aged 24 and 21 were detained over one fire while the third man is suspected of starting a separate blaze, the French interior ministry said.

The fires in the south of the Mediterranean island have burnt 5,500 acres of land since Thursday and are still not fully under control.

Residents have been hosing down their homes with water in an attempt to protect them from the flames.

“We are not evacuating but the fire is within 10m (33ft) of the houses,” said Corsican Lucienne Gaspari.

“The firefighters are on all fronts and the people are calm, but the fire is everywhere.”

Five Canadair planes have been brought in to help tackle the flames, regional official Thierry Rogelet said.

The weather was “getting better” with winds and temperatures dropping to below 30C, he added.

Eight people, six of them Spanish firefighters, have died since a heatwave fuelled the wildfires across southern Europe.

In Italy, some 1,500 firefighters and volunteers are tackling around 17 fires, mainly on the islands of Sardinia and Sicily and in the southern Calabria region.

Officials were looking “for a drop in temperatures and other factors to help stop the fires from spreading and fanning flames”, Luigi D’Angelo of Italy’s civil protection force said.

Hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes in Budoni in northeast Sardinia, but the fires there posed “no particular danger” for people because they are in forest areas, he added.

An investigation found one of the most devastating blazes on the island, in which a shepherd and a rancher were killed trying to protect their animals, was started deliberately.

In Spain, most of the wildfires which destroyed more than 42,000 acres of land around the country have been brought under control.

And although the blazes in Greece have mostly been contained, officials are still on high alert as rising temperatures could trigger new fires.