ROME (AFP)

Air-conditioned cinemas in Rome will offer free places to help residents of the Italian capital struggling with an intense summer heatwave, city officials said Wednesday.

With much of Italy struggling with extreme temperatures and authorities on the island of Sicily reporting hundreds of wildfires in recent days, the Rome scheme will turn 11 cinemas and 11 libraries into climate refuges until August 4.

Organisers will offer free places for 10 Italian films, with each film shown twice a day. The libraries will offer visitors water.

"Climate change is unfortunately a reality. It affects people's lives, their health, their social interactions and their ability to do things during those hours and days," Massimiliano Smeriglio, Rome's councillor for culture, told reporters.

He added that the project aims to create places "where people can also overcome the isolation caused by not being able to stay outdoors".

Rome's average temperatures have risen by three degrees Celsius since the 1980s, compared with around 2C in other European capitals, according to an ISTAT report published last month.

Firefighters on Sicily were battling several wildfires caused by the heatwave that has seen temperatures hit 40C.

One fire raging for several days in the centre of the island has forced the evacuation of about 100 residents around Castronovo and Santo Stefano Quisquina and 22 patients in a clinic.

Firefighters have reported 1,000 wildfires since Saturday across Sicily. A civil protection spokesman told AFP the situation was "serious" and that the high temperatures and lack of rain had helped the fires spread.

The temperature reached 48.8C near the Sicilian town of Syracuse in August 2021, which the World Meteorological Organisation says is the record high for continental Europe.