President Jacques Chirac warned those responsible for setting fires would face "punishment of exceptional severity" as evidence emerged that arson may be behind several of fires spreading at a pace unseen since special fire-fighting services were created after World War II.

Two of the victims, both of them elderly hikers from Britain, were found Monday in woods outside the village of La Garde Freinet in the Maures region, an area of densely forested low-lying hills near the Mediterranean coast.

In Sainte Maxime, near the trendy resort of Saint Tropez, 3,000 people were evacuated to safety as the fire was encroaching on the coastal town, where the body of the third victim, a woman, was discovered.

The body of a Polish man was found later in the Maures region, an official said.

More than 350 firemen were hard at work Monday evening, tackling the flames that reached the coastline on a front of several kilometers (miles), whipped up by strong winds despite tonnes of water dropped from nine firefighting planes. Four firefighters have been injured, including one seriously.

Some 3,000 people evacuated from the resort town of Frejus were bedded down in cots in an aircraft hangar that used to house fighter jets at a nearby former military base untouched by the flames from the seven fires besieging the town.

In Saint Tropez officials opened a gym to accommodate people stranded on the road between the two towns after it was closed.

A dozen fires that raged Monday in the Var region between the cities of Marseille and Nice destroyed more than 8,000 hectares (19,800 acres) of woodland, 7,500 hectares alone in the Maures mountains, rescuers said.

At least some of the fires appeared to have been set by arsonists, officials said.

"The fires are criminal in origin. Here in Frejus we have found Molotov cocktails, that is to say bottles (of fuel) with wicks," said the town's mayor, Elie Brun.

Around 10 homes have been gutted in the fire.

At 10:00 pm (2000 GMT) power outages left people in Sainte Maxime in the dark and all telephone lines were cut off.

At the former airbase outside Frejus the mood was one of anger, with many saying the fires had been purposely set.

"This couldn't have been an accident. It was a real scum who did this," said Patrick Pauget, who was staying at a nearby campsite with his family.

Despite having just 20 minutes to gather their belongings, the evacuation went smoothly, said Parisian computer technician Christian Junier. "Everything went calmly," he said.

Three major forest fires have swept through the Var region in the past 10 days, two in the Maures hills and one in the neighbouring Esterel -- both areas of outstanding natural beauty -- but had caused no victims.

A serious fire also broke out Monday on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, near the southern town of Bonifacio, where one man was airlifted to hospital with severe burns and residents had to be evacuated by sea and air.

On top of the 300 troops already sent to help firefighters since the start of summer, the defence ministry will send another 100 men and extra helicopters, Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie announced on Monday.

A helicopter carrying Italian firefighters arrived in Corsica on Monday, with several dozen more bound for southeast France, French security services said, following an unprecedented appeal for help in battling the flames.

TERRA.WIRE