Rescue workers evacuated two campgrounds and a vacation resort near La Garde-Freinet in the Maures hills as a safety precaution as the wind-fanned flames spread, officials said, with 700 hectares (1,730 acres) already ravaged.

Two Russian water-dropping helicopters provided support to the French firefighters, who were already using 10 aircraft to help fight the blaze on two fronts in the area northwest of the fashionable Riviera resort of Saint-Tropez.

Four smaller fires broke out in the same region later Sunday, forcing firefighters to divert their attention from the main blaze.

Authorities closed several roads in the region and urged holidaymakers leaving the area near Saint-Tropez to use coastal roads whenever possible.

Elsewhere, a blaze erupted in Cagnes-sur-Mer, with plumes of smoke visible in the Riviera city of Nice, 20 kilometers (12 miles) to the east. Firefighters said they could be forced to evacuate several holiday villas.

Four people were killed and some 20,000 hectares of woodlands destroyed in fires that swept through the Maures hills last month. The blazes came amid a hot spell and southern France's worst drought in a quarter of a century.

A fifth person was killed in July in fires on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, where firefighters on Sunday battled to contain several fires burning in the northern half of the island.

TERRA.WIRE