It comes after more than 20,000 hectares of forest, olive groves and crops were destroyed by a blaze in Sardinia a week earlier.

“In the last 24 hours, firefighters have carried out more than 800 interventions: 250 in Sicily, 130 in Puglia and Calabria, 90 in Lazio and 70 in Campania,” Italy’s fire brigade tweeted.

The brigade added that firefighters were still working against blazes in the Sicilian cities of Catania, Palermo and Syracuse.

On Friday, 150 people were trapped by fires in two seaside areas of the port city of Catania before being evacuated by sea by the coast guard, according to Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera.

The area’s airport also closed temporarily to give priority to air rescue and firefighting missions.

Meanwhile in Abruzzo, at least five people were wounded and holidaymakers evacuated after wildfires devastated a pine wood near a beach in the region’s capital of Pescara on Sunday.

A five-year-old girl was taken to hospital but her condition is not believed to be life-threatening, according to reports.

About 800 people were evacuated from their homes, including a convent of nuns, after a fire broke out in the 53-hectare Pineta Dannunziana nature reserve.

While the south of Italy has been burning, the north has suffered wild storms.

“The cost of the damage caused throughout the northern Italian countryside by the violent storms and hail during this crazy summer amounts to tens of millions of euros,” the Coldiretti agricultural organisation said.

Fanned by soaring temperatures, strong winds and climate change — which experts say increases both the frequency and intensity of such blazes — this year’s fire season in Europe has been significantly more destructive than the previous average, EU data shows.