Hundreds of People Evacuated in Italy's Sardinia Due to Blazes

Some 600 people have been evacuated as a precaution in Italy's Sardinia as huge fires, made worse by strong winds, have been blazing in the northern and southern parts of the island.

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Among the blazes, a major fire was burning on Sunday afternoon in the municipality of Posada in the northeastern province of Nuoro in Sardinia, causing a "heavy situation" where winds were pushing flames towards nearby coastal villages popular with tourists.

As of early Monday, Canadair firefighting planes, helicopters and firefighters were still combating the fires, and the regional civil protection department was bringing in reinforcements.

The fires devastated farms and destroyed forage reserves in the Feraxi area and threatened some accommodation facilities.

On Sunday, Sardinia's governor Christian Solinas asked the national civil protection services to strengthen the firefighting air fleet, and forwarded an early warning for the activation of the European civil protection mechanism.

He did not rule out the possibility that the blazes were a result of arson. Therefore, he instructed regional forestry corps to "intensify investigations throughout the territory to identify and bring those responsible to justice."

Coldiretti, the main Italian agricultural association, regretted that the fires in Sardinia have affected hundreds of hectares of fodder and citrus plants that are at the base of agricultural and livestock farms on the island.

It also mentioned that the fires favored by the wind do not seem to stop, which endangers other economic activities such as tourism.