Two Britons Killed As Arsonists Blamed for Forest Fires Across French Riviera

French police were searching last night for arsonists believed to be behind the series of devastating forest fires sweeping across the Riviera, in which a British teenager and her grandmother have died.

Margaret Timson, 63, and Kirsty Egerton, 15, died in one of the blazes which swept across the Maures mountain range, near the village of Grimaud in the Var region.

The women, from Wigan, Lancashire, became trapped in La Garde-Freinet area after getting in their car and trying to flee the fires on Monday night.

Mrs Timson's husband identified the bodies of his wife and granddaughter early yesterday, and other members of the family are expected to fly out from England to join him.

A relative at Mr and Mrs Timson's home in Wigan said the family were too upset to comment.

The French president, Jacques Chirac, vowed that the arsonists would receive "punishment of exceptional severity" when caught and added that "the guilty will be sought out with extreme rigour".

A Dutch woman and a Polish man were also killed in the blazes.

More than 1,500 firefighters battled against the fires, which started almost simultaneously at 30 different places on Monday afternoon. Fifteen fire planes and helicopters dropped water on a large area of blazing woodland around the resorts of Fréjus and Sainte-Maxime to the west.

Some property owners battled in vain to save their homes as thousands of residents and holidaymakers fled. The police recovered evidence of petrol bombs at the place where the fires began.

"It's the apocalypse," said Luc Jousse, the mayor of Roquebrune-sur-Argens, describing the fires as "a new form of terrorism". He said that more than 10,000 people had been evacuated from the surrounding area. "Everything is charred and smoking."

Seven camping and caravan sites packed with holidaymakers near Sainte-Maxime were evacuated, and 11 more near Fréjus. Thousands of shocked tourists, a few dressed only in their swimming costumes, were put up in school gymnasiums and community centres.

Electricity was cut briefly overnight in the Gulf of St Tropez region, and most roads were closed.

Mr Jousse and the mayor of Fréjus, Elie Brun, said they were filing formal complaints "against persons unknown", which will automatically trigger an investigation into the cause of the fires, described as the worst the region has known.

A fire in the same area just over a week ago burned down about 40 square miles of the Massif des Maures. The latest fire raged through about 30 square miles with no sign of being contained.

Ian McCulloch told the BBC that he was evacuated from his villa on July 17 during the first set of fires. "It was obvious it was far from safe."

Carl Sjogren, who owns property in Port Grimaud, said he had never seen the conditions so bad. "It has been exceptionally hot and dry this summer so if you want to purposefully start a fire it must be very easy to carry out."

Christian Dufresne of Sainte-Maxime sprayed the outside of his home with water from a garden hose to stop it catching fire. The structure sustained only minor damage, but the lush collection of trees surrounding his property was destroyed.

The French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who flew to the scene of what he described as an "ecological disaster", said: "People have lost their lives and we don't have to sit back and accept this kind of tragedy just because some people behave like lunatics."