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Two people in car burned to death in Italy forest fire

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ROME, July 24 (RIA Novosti) - The bodies of two people were found in a charred car after a forest fire in southeast Italy's Apulia region Tuesday, a local social services official told reporters.

In a separate incident earlier Tuesday, a forest fire engulfed a gas canister storage facility in San Nicola, causing a series of large explosions. The blasts injured several people and triggered panic in the town. Firefighters, police, medics, and rescuers are still working at the scene.

Extreme weather conditions have been gripping Europe this summer, with severe floods in the United Kingdom and forest fires sweeping across the Balkans and other parts of southern Europe.

Dozens of fires continue to rage in central and southern Italy, destroying hundreds of hectares of forest and forcing residents and tourists to evacuate amid soaring temperatures and strong winds.

The national civil defense service said the number of fires continues to rise. The service's firefighting planes and helicopters, and hundreds of firefighting teams on the ground, have been battling blazes since morning.

Italy has been hit by a heat wave with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees C (104 degrees F) in some cities, but officials maintain that many of the fires are the result of arson rather than the heat, according to the Associated Press.

A total of 5,643 large-scale wildfires were reported in the country in 2006, when 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) of forest was destroyed.

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