Some 1,700 firefighters were focusing their attention on a swathe of territory in the Maures hills, behind some of the most expensive real estate in Europe and near the trendy Riviera resort town of Saint-Tropez.

Water-carrying aircraft were deployed to help douse the fires, which have come amid an exceptionally hot and dry summer over much of southern and central Europe. Russian and Italian firefighters were sent to the scene to help.

Chirac, speaking during a visit to French Polynesia, said that anyone found responsible for setting fires in the area, which broke out in force on Monday, would face "punishment of exceptional severity."

Visiting the region, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday authorities would "show no mercy to people who start fires, including those who do so out of carelessness", describing the blazes as an "ecological massacre".

Two British walkers -- a teenage girl and her grandmother -- were found burned to death on Monday in woods outside the village of La Garde-Freinet in the Maures region. The third victim was a 76-year-old woman whose body was found in the coastal town of Sainte-Maxime.

On the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, where fierce brush fires also broke out on Monday near the southern town of Bonifacio, a 49-year-old man died Tuesday after suffering severe burns while trying to save his home.

Dozens of houses were destroyed or damaged in the blazes and four firefighters were injured, one of them seriously, according to emergency workers.

Some 6,500 people were evacuated from Sainte-Maxime and surrounding towns including Frejus on Monday, but some were being allowed to return to their homes around Sainte-Maxime early Tuesday.

In Saint-Tropez, officials opened a gym to accommodate people stranded on the road between the exclusive resort and Sainte-Maxime after it was closed, while some 3,000 evacuees were put up in an an aircraft hangar near Frejus.

Frejus mayor Elie Brun raised the alarm about the possibility of arson, saying officials in the town had found Molotov cocktails apparently intended to set fires

"The fires are criminal in origin," he charged.

The blazes were estimated to have destroyed than 8,000 hectaresacres) of woodland and brush along a swathe in the Var region between the coastal cities of Marseille and Nice, most of it in the Maures hills.

Three major forest fires have swept through the Var in the past 10 days, two in the Maures hills and one in the neighbouring Esterel -- both areas of outstanding natural beauty -- but they did not claim any victims.

At the former military base outside Frejus, evacuees expressed anger, with many saying they believed the fires had been purposely set.

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

Peter Gordon, a German singer whose house in Sainte-Maxime was damaged by the flames, put the blame on campers, saying: "Without a doubt, the campers with their barbecues sparked all this."

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

"Everything went calmly," he said.

burs-bd/sst/ds

TERRA.WIRE