The charred bodies of a couple in their 70s were found in their burnt-out home on the outskirts of Palermo, the regional capital, according to Italian media reports.

Another woman in her late 80s died in the Palermo province after an ambulance was unable to reach her home due to fires in the area.

In an overnight message on Facebook, Sicilian President Renato Schifani said “scorching heat and unprecedented devastating fires” had turned Tuesday into “one of the most difficult days in decades”.

Italian firefighters said they battled almost 1400 fires between Sunday and Tuesday, including 650 in Sicily and 390 in Calabria, the southern mainland region where a bedridden 98-year-old man was killed as fire consumed his home.

Fires were still burning on the hills around Palermo on Wednesday, with Canadair planes back in operation to try to douse the flames.

Large areas of the Mediterranean have been sweltering under an intense summer heatwave that has caused deadly blazes across the region.

Italian firefighters have battled almost 1400 fires between Sunday and Tuesday this week, including 650 in Sicily and 390 in Calabria. (Photo: ANSA)

Sicily is a major tourist destination but a fire inside a terminal building last week caused the near-total closure of its biggest airport in Catania on the east of the island.

Palermo airport was also closed for a few hours on Tuesday because of a wildfire nearby.

“I hope that tourist flows in the areas affected by the fires will not suffer losses,” Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci, a Sicilian, told the La Stampa newspaper.

“The risk ... is there and it is understandable”.

Musumeci will hold an urgent briefing in the Chamber of Deputies (Lower House) at 4pm on Thursday on the fires in Sicily and at Catania airport, Deputy Speaker Sergio Costa said on Wednesday.

The government has vowed to increase protections against fores and hunt down pyromaniacs.

While Italy’s south is battling wildfires, the north of the country is reeling from severe storms that on Tuesday killed two people, including a 16-year-old girl scout crushed by a falling tree.

In a sign that temperatures were finally easing, only two cities – Catania in Sicily and Bari in southern Puglia – were on a government heatwave “red alert” list for Wednesday, down from 17 the previous day.

Meanwhile, Sicily’s Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday said that the three elderly fire victims on the island this week had been killed by the “diabolic hands” of fire starters.

“Sicily is burning, not only because of rising temperatures, but engulfed by devastating flames: forests, countryside, roads, motorways, houses, airports, archaeological parks, landfills, churches are burning. Even the remains of saints burn.

The bodies of workers and volunteers burn,” the bishops said in a statement.

“The diabolical hands of heartless and conscienceless vandals took the lives of three elderly people,” the bishops’ statment continued.

“Burning with fear, anxiety, despair, anger and pain are the faces and souls of the two thousand innocent victims of this fiery, announced and almost expected, earthly hell: the evacuee.”

ANSA & AAP