(BSS/AFP) - Wildfires swept across parts of Italy, France and Spain on Wednesday, killing three firefighters and forcing thousands to flee as scorching temperatures and strong winds fuelled the blazes.

The fires come as southern Europe endures another spell of severe heat, with temperatures topping 40C in some areas.

Scientists agree that climate change caused by humans burning fossil fuels is making extreme weather events such as fires and heatwaves more likely and more severe.

In Sicily, around 6,000 firefighters, forest guards and civil protection officials battled dozens of fires that have raged for days across the Mediterranean island.

Regional president Renato Schifani said about 50 fires were still burning despite the deployment of water-bombing aircraft.

Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said a firefighter died after falling ill while battling the flames.

A spokesperson for the Italian Civil Protection Agency told AFP the situation in Sicily was "serious" and that the fires were "being fuelled by very high temperatures and very dry soil".

More than 160 fires have also been recorded in the neighbouring Calabria region which the head of local civil protection said were deliberate cases of arson by "malicious individuals" who had among other things tied rags soaked in flammable liquid to the tails of stray cats to spread fires.

In France, two firefighters died on Tuesday tackling a blaze that broke out near Bordeaux airport.

France`s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez met the firefighters` families on Wednesday, as unions warned workers were facing "exhaustion" and a lack of resources.

Two raging fires displaced thousands of people in the country`s southwest and one ravaged around 2,000 hectares (nearly 5,000 acres) in the picturesque Arcachon Basin region near Bordeaux.

"We`re dealing with a very dense stand of closely packed pines," firefighter Captain Wilfried Schneider told AFP, describing a fire of "rare" intensity.

- Big black cloud -

"We saw a big cloud of black smoke spread across the sky in the middle of the afternoon," said Julie Leonard, a Bordeaux resident in her thirties who came with her family to the affected Le Porge area but in a spot not under threat.

"If I`d been brave, I would have stayed in my cabin, but it was too hot. I got in my car and left," said Bernard Roche, 75, who has lived in the area for 35 years.

"In the forest, it`s been particularly dry these last few days," the former lifeguard said.

Le Porge`s mayor Martial Zaninetti said the fire could have been started by a machine used to clear forest track but this is yet to be officially confirmed.

Around 700 people left their homes as a precaution in Le Porge, where more than 3,000 campers were also relocated, the prefecture said.

A blaze that raced through wooded hills in another part of southern France, forcing hundreds from their homes and devouring an area twice the size of London`s Heathrow airport, was being contained earlier Wednesday, officials said.

The fire erupted Tuesday in the Var region and spread at an unexpectedly fast pace, forcing some 400 people to evacuate and devouring 2,550 hectares.

Nearly 1,000 firefighters and specialised water aircraft battled to contain the blaze in the region that lies along France`s Mediterranean coast between the cities of Marseille and Nice.

In total, 12,000 people have been evacuated in southwest France and the Gironde Prefect Sophie Brocas has called for hundreds more to leave.

In Spain, authorities ordered the evacuation of several districts on Wednesday around the city of Toledo, south of Madrid, after a major wildfire threatened homes.

Emergency alerts were sent by telephone to residents of the districts because of the fire and several arterial roads were cut off, the Civil Guard said.

Emergency services said that "due to the progression" of the fire, three villages had been ordered evacuated and people in a fourth had been told to stay in their homes with doors and windows closed "until further notice".

Toledo is 75 kilometres (45 miles) from the capital.

The new blaze spread as hundreds of firefighters battled a major wildfire that has devastated 32,000 hectares about 100 kilometres north of Madrid.

In 2025, more than 393,000 hectares had been consumed by flames in Spain, according to the European Forest Fire Information System, the worst toll in the country`s recent history.