Firefighters in Croatia and Montenegro have been struggling to contain wild fires along the Adriatic coast as their counterparts in Italy, France and Portugal have been battling major blazes.

About a dozen wildfires broke out late on Sunday in the villages surrounding Split, a popular tourist destination, but firefighters managed to control the blaze on the outskirts of Croatia's second-largest city.

Late on Monday the fire spread to the suburbs of Split where a shopping centre had to be evacuated and several cars were burned.

According to initial estimates some 4,500 hectares (11,120 acres) of land, mostly pine forests, bushes and olive groves, were destroyed. Houses were burned, but there were no reports of casualties.

In neighbouring Montenegro, where the forest fires forced the evacuation of more than a hundred campers on the Lustica peninsula, the situation had improved on Tuesday.

Fires however were still burning in several municipalities further inland but were all under control, according to a statement from the interior ministry.

In Italy, authorities said a blaze in a pine forest at a popular park outside Rome was deliberately set and that a suspect has been arrested. The fire has since been brought under control.

But fires continued to burn in southern Italy in parts of the Calabria region and in the outskirts of Naples, where one person died on Monday after falling off his roof where he went to look at how the forest fire was progressing not far from his home.

Winds, high temperatures and dry conditions prompted fires to break out the past several days in southern France and the Mediterranean island of Corsica.

More than 450 firefighters were still battling a forest fire at Castagniera, north of Nice, which has destroyed some 100 hectares but appears not to be spreading further, authorities said.
On Monday fire swept through around 200 hectares of scrubland near Bonifacio in southern Corsica.

On Europe's Atlantic coast nearly 1,400 firefighters supported by water-bombing planes and helicopters have battled three major blazes in northern Portugal since Sunday.

Civil protection authorities say firefighters have managed to bring most of the fires under control and weather conditions improved on Tuesday as temperatures dropped from 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) to 30 C.