Weekly fire toll hits level for all 2016 (3)

(ANSA) - Rome, July 18 - The wildfires that are raging in many parts of Italy burned the same area of the country in one week as the total for the whole of 2016, according to data from the European Commission's European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). It said that blazes affected 27,167 hectares of land between July 8 and 16. Italian Environmental association Legambiente's 'Ecomafia' report, by contrast, said 27,000 hectares went up in smoke in all of 2016.
    According to EFFIS, flames enveloped 52,374 hectares between the start of the year and July 15, including 34,956 in the first half of this month. President Sergio Mattarella on Tuesday called for a hard line to be taken against arsonists. He said that blazes "are often the result of criminal actions, which should be punished with strong determination and great severity". Rome prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into the massive blaze that hit the Castel Fusano pine wood in the south of Rome on Monday, sources said. The fire appears to have broken out in three different spots in the forest, police said. The arson investigation includes the case of the 22-year-old from the northern city of Busto Arsizio arrested on Monday. The man was allegedly caught red-handed trying to light a fire.