Updated July 27, 2017 12:42:04

Photo: Sunbathers are evacuated from a beach in Le Lavandou on the French Riviera. (AP: Claude Paris)

Backed by planes dropping water and fire retardant, more than 1,000 firefighters are battling bushfires billowing smoke into the sky over France's southern Cote d'Azur, forcing the evacuation of at least 12,000 people.

The blaze was the latest of several wind-whipped fires ravaging forest and scrubland on the hills and slopes that spill into the Mediterranean Sea.

France's Prime Minister, visiting the area, predicted a grim day ahead.

Large swaths of Mediterranean forest had been left bare and blackened after three days of fires. About 250 trailer homes, a hangar, an atelier and several vehicles were burned in the blazes, but no-one had been injured so far, the prefect of the Var region said.

Residents and tourists were evacuated early on Wednesday (local time) after a ferocious fire whipped by strong mistral winds spread from La Londe-Les-Maures to dense forests around the picturesque hilltop town of Bormes-Les-Mimosas. About 60 people were evacuated by boat from nearby Cap Benat.

Photo: An aerial view shows plumes of smoke on the outskirts of Bormes-les-Mimosas. (AP: Nadine Achoui-Lesage)

"There will be more fires tomorrow," Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said. He travelled to Bormes on Wednesday night, flew over the devastated region and met with firefighting personnel.

Firefighting aircraft made more than 500 drops of water or retardant on Wednesday, Mr Phillipe said, and only three fires remained active in the Var region out of dozens that started on Wednesday.

"The situation remains difficult, I must say. Like me, you feel the wind is blowing," the prime minister said.

Further south of the French mainland, flames ate through 2,000 hectares of forest on the northern end of the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, in what was the largest blaze in France.

Photo: A woman and her daughter look at the smoke from fires in Bormes-les-Mimosas. (Reuters: Jean-Paul Pelissier)

Tourist Francoise Roparse, who was visiting the south of France, was among the evacuees awakened in the middle of the night who found shelter in a sailing club near Bormes.

"First, it was a bit of panic," Mr Roparse said. "We tried to gather all important things … Obviously, we forgot a lot."

Dozens of people initially spent the night on a beach, but public spaces pressed into service as emergency shelters were filling up.

The disaster, which hit at the height of the summer season, challenged regional governments with economies that depend on tourism. The town of Bormes tweeted a call for donations of towels for the evacuees staying in the local gymnasium.

Fires also burn in Portugal and Italy

Fires in other countries, such as Portugal, have killed dozens.

In central Portugal on Wednesday, billowing smoke made visibility too poor to use water-dropping aircraft on the region's flaming pine and eucalyptus forests. More than 2,300 firefighters with more than 700 vehicles battled 13 blazes, with flames driven by powerful winds.

In Italy, where wildfires have raged for weeks, firefighters responded to 26 requests for water and fire retardant air crops on Tuesday throughout central and southern Italy, including Calabria, Sicily, Sardinia, Lazio and Puglia.

The Coldiretti agriculture lobby said 50 million bees were destroyed along with their hives in fires on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. Coldiretti said another 20 per cent of the bee population is estimated to have become disoriented by all the smoke and died as a result.

AP

Topics: fires, travel-and-tourism, france

First posted July 27, 2017 05:05:19