ROME, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Wildfires kept spreading in Italy on Monday, and especially in the southern Sicily region, following dozens of emergency requests to firefighters on Sunday, authorities and local media reported.
Extremely dry conditions, due to a heat wave and a long lack of rainfall in many areas, were contributing to the outbreak of the fires.
Up to mid-Monday, thirteen requests of intervention from five different regions were sent to the national Civil Protection Dept. overseeing the units of inter-force emergency air support, a spokesperson for the agency told Xinhua.
They added to hundreds of firefighters deployed by the various regional governments in the critical areas. Sicily was currently thought to be in the worst situation in terms of number of blazes, with wildfires spreading in five different provinces -- Catania, Palermo, Messina, Agrigento, and Trapani, according to the press officer.
The other requests of help on Monday were sent by the Calabria and Campania regions in the south, and by Tuscany and Umbria in central Italy.
On Sunday, the Civil Protection Dept. had received 26 calls of intervention, and sent 16 Canadair water-dropping planes and 4 helicopters across the country, the agency also said in a statement.
Raging since Sunday, wildfires would have destroyed entire woodlands around Messina in eastern Sicily, La Repubblica daily reported citing a local official. However, the city authorities assessed the situation in residential areas near the fires was under control by firefighters, and did not issue any evacuation order.
"We have no reason so far to think residents are in danger," the newspaper quoted Messina councillor for Civil Protection Sebastiano Pino as saying.
A critical blaze in the mountainous area around Siena, Tuscany, was put out on Monday morning, the civil protection also told Xinhua.
The wildfire had raged there since Sunday afternoon, destroying at least 15 hectares of woodlands, and threatening some small farms and the local power plant.
Some families had to be evacuated from the areas during the emergency.
