Bermudian businessman Ross Webber and his family escaped by minutes from a camp site in the south of France that was engulfed by flames.

Four tourists were killed on Monday as 30 separate fires believed to have been caused by arsonist ravaged campsites across the Var region.

Mr. Webber, his wife Sarah, and their two children Alys, two, and Jack, one, managed to flee on Monday afternoon when someone spotted a fire at the site, just outside Frejus, near Nice.

Mr. Webber, 31, the marketing manager of Conyers, Dill and Pearman, and Mrs Webber, a former Bermuda Broadcasting Company journalist, sped out of the site in their car when it was evacuated.

When they turned around, the site was being consumed by flames and their caravan was totally destroyed.

They were forced to join thousands of others at a former military base as campsites around the region were evacuated due to a series of fires, which French police believe may have been caused by arson.

The family escaped with their passports and credit cards, but everything else was reduced to cinders.

Mrs Webber, 31, said she had joined her mother and father Ann and David Waddington, from Middlesbrough, England, brother John and his wife Jane and their two young children, for Mrs. Waddington's 50 birthday.

Speaking from Nice, Mrs. Webber told The Royal Gazette yesterday: "We were told to evacuate the campsite yesterday and we had minutes to get out or we were going to die.

"We slept overnight in our cars in a military base and when we returned this afternoon, everything had burned down. Four people have been killed here, so I suppose we can count ourselves lucky, but our holiday is over.

"My mum and dad's part of the site was untouched, which was very lucky, although towels on their balcony were burned, so they came very close.

"We had just come back from the supermarket in the afternoon when we spotted a small fire in the distance then we started to smell smoke.

"At that point we heard people in the distance saying `Don't panic, but you must leave now'. They were saying `Get in your car and go now'.

"We ran into the caravan and grabbed a box with our passports and credit cards, got the kids, threw everything in with the kids. My daughter was still in her swimsuit.

"We parked and looked back five minutes later and I turned to my husband and said `that's our campsite'. It had gone from a small fire to an immense one.

"It was the first fire of the day and it wiped out about 8,000 hectares. It was a huge fire, the whole sky was taken over by the red glow and there were planes coming over the top of us dropping water.

"We realised at that point that we had to get further away and we headed for the mountains.

"We didn't know where we were going and we just drove and drove for about eight hours.

"We were in contact with my mother on a cell phone and my mother heard they were making a military base available for people to park their cars.

"There were thousands of people there playing music and they were giving out water. At 10 a.m. we were allowed back but it took it took us four and half hours to do the ten minute drive because everyone was going in the same direction.

"My husband went into the site and came back and said `there's nothing left'. It was very upsetting because of the small things like a favourite bag for the children. We're not looking forward to my daughter asking for her favourite toy.

"We're at Nice Airport now trying to get a flight to London to spend some time in England and get our lives back together, getting things like toothbrushes.

"Mum and dad are trying to stay in the area, but my brother and his wife are going to drive back and go to Euro Disney to try to make something of the holiday.

"It is not often we get to see each other, and that's what is so upsetting. At the end of the day, we are all alive.

"There was a 15-year-old English girl and her grandmother that died, but at least we all got out.

"The only thing we lost of value was my mother's birthday present, but we can always get her another.

"I've heard French President Jacques Chirac saying they think it is arsonists, which is so scary. I find it very difficult to understand how anyone could want to do something like that."