Almost 500 people have been arrested on suspicion of starting wildfires in France since the start of the summer, authorities have said, as firefighters in half a dozen European countries tackle ferocious blazes amid a record-breaking heatwave.A fire engulfed ⁠homes in a Croatian holiday resort on Friday, killing one person, injuring 40 and forcing 1,200 to evacuate, officials said, as the EU warned that pockets of “very extreme” wildfire conditions stretched across the continent.Hundreds more people were evacuated from villages in western Germany and southwest France, while stranded holidaymakers were picked up from beaches threatened by flames in Greece, and the army rescued historic relics in Spain.Residents in Belgium’s Liège province were also asked to evacuate their homes on Saturday afternoon, as the biggest fire on the country’s record burned through the High Fens, Belgium’s largest nature reserve. With three in five Europeans experiencing temperatures of at least 30 degrees on Friday and about 150 million enduring 35 degrees or more, France’s interior ministry said 474 people, including 183 minors, had been detained over wildfires in the country since July 1st.About 70 per cent of those arrested were suspected of deliberately starting fires and the rest of doing so accidentally. French media said a 15-year-old boy had been detained in connection with a fire near Bordeaux airport that killed two firefighters in July.French authorities on Friday evacuated more than 525 people from the village of Luglon in the south-west region of Landes after a new wildfire tore through almost 1,100 hectares of tinder-dry pine forest in less than 24 hours.A fire rages in the High Fens nature reserve in Belgium on Friday night. Photograph: Natacha Freisen/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images “The situation is unfavourable and the fire remains raging,” Gilles Clavreul, a regional official, told reporters, ​adding that 500 firefighters were tackling ‌the flames and six water-dumping aircraft ‌had been sent to assist. Roads to the village were closed.Luglon is about 100km southeast of the popular holiday destinations of Arcachon Bay and the Lège-Cap-Ferret peninsula where two huge wildfires destroyed more than 50,000 hectares in late July, forcing the evacuation of as many as 220,000 people.Scientists say climate breakdown is causing more frequent and more extreme weather events, evaporating soils and waterways, fuelling wildfires and leading to thousands of excess deaths in France. Europe is heating at about twice the global average rate.The EU’s Copernicus climate change service warned in its weekly outlook of “very extreme” conditions across a ​large area of central and eastern Europe, with other pockets over southern Britain, northern France and southern Sweden.The average high across western Europe on ‌Friday was about 31 degrees, which is 8 degrees above what was typical from 1961 to 1990, data from the Reuters Climate Monitor showed. The temperature for Europe as a whole was 1.6 degrees above the 1961-1990 norm.In western Germany, more than 2,000 people fled their homes early on Friday morning to take shelter in a nearby primary school after a ⁠wildfire in the nearby Hürtgen forest spread to within a few hundred metres of the village of Gey.“This forest fire threatens to hit the local ‌community hard,” Mona Neubaur, the deputy premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, posted on social media. Unexploded second world war ordnance was also hampering firefighting efforts.The news agency dpa reported explosions could be heard as munitions detonated in the flames, forcing firefighters to stay out of the area, not far from the Belgian border, for safety. German army tanks and helicopters were providing support.[ Opinion: Europe needs to start treating the climate emergency as a threat to our national securityOpens in new window ]In Croatia, a wildfire driven by strong winds descended on the tourist town of Lokva Rogoznica on the Dalmatian coast overnight. Police said they had located the body of one person while searching burned areas on Friday afternoon.Emergency ​shelters opened in several nearby towns. Of 36 people treated by ambulance services in the city of Split, about 25km to the north, 14 were admitted to hospital and seven had life-threatening injuries, local health officials said. “It was a strong fire, it swept everything on ‌its way … there has been huge material damage,” Slavko Tucaković, the regional chief fire commander, said on Friday, adding that the blaze appeared to have calmed by Friday morning.The country’s prime minister, Andrej ‌Plenković, said on a visit to nearby Omiš, where the evacuees were sheltering in a sports hall, that the blaze was “one of the worst fires in recent years” but “most importantly” there were no confirmed fatalities so far.In northeast Spain, an army unit removed the remains of three 11th-century Aragonese kings from the San Juan de la Peña monastery after it was threatened by a wildfire and took them to a ​museum in nearby Huesca.The fire, which began on Monday, intensified on ⁠Thursday, authorities said, driven by higher temperatures and strong winds that have enabled it to burn through more ​than 9,000 hectares, forcing ​the evacuation of 16 towns and villages.[ World’s seas hit hottest temperature on record for July, say scientistsOpens in new window ]A ​much larger wildfire in southern Spain also worsened on Thursday. It has so far burned 31,000 hectares in the province of Huelva and forced the evacuation of about 700 people.In northern Greece, a fleet of small boats evacuated about 500 holidaymakers from beaches on Thursday as a forest fire threatened Siviri and Fourka, two popular resorts on the Halkidiki peninsula, south of the city of Thessaloniki.The 2km-long fire front, with flames up to 30 metres high, was brought under control later in the day, the regional civil protection chief said, though crews remained on alert for flare-ups. Two injured firefighters were taken to hospital, the fire service added.A maximum level-five alert for fires was issued for much of the Greek mainland and officials in Halkidiki have banned access to the region’s dense pine forests.In the UK, wildfires raced across the West Midlands, burning several houses to the ground in “one of the most significant” incidents the region’s fire service has ever had to deal with, the regional fire chief, Simon Tuhill, said. – Guardian