The Latest on wildfires in southern France and Portugal (all times local): 1:50 p.m. Wildfires are burning across swaths of central and southern Italy, aided by the region’s drought and high temperatures, but authorities say most have been caused by arson.
Coldiretti said another 20 percent of the bee population is estimated to have become disoriented from the smoke of the fires and died as a result.
Col. Eric Martin, of the firefighting unit in the Var region of the Cote d’Azur, said on Wednesday that nearly 600 firefighters were trying to contain the flames that had run through 1,300 hectares of Bormes, a magnet for tourists in southeastern France.
Firefighters also were fighting a large blaze in nearby La Londes-Les-Maures.
The Toulon airport to the west was briefly closed.
Almost 1,700 firefighters supported by 17 water-dropping aircraft are tackling wildfires in Portugal, where every summer large areas of woodland are scorched.
The worst fires were around the town of Macao, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) northeast of Lisbon, where deputy mayor Antonio Louro said the damage to livelihoods of local farmers was "catastrophic."
Many people in the area make their living from the local pine and eucalyptus forests, which are bone dry after months without significant rainfall.
The top official of France’s Var region on the Mediterranean coast says that 10,000 people were evacuated as blazes hopscotching around the Riviera tore through the town of La Londe-les-Maures.
The statement said that some 10,000 people — about 3,000 of them campers — were evacuated from La Londe and nearby Bormes and La Lavandou.