A week-long wildfire on the Greek resort island of Rhodes ravaged defenses on Monday, forcing new evacuations, as three major fires raged elsewhere in the country, fueled by high winds and waves of successive heat which left the scrublands and forests dry.
The latest evacuations were ordered in southern Rhodes after 19,000 people, mostly tourists, were moved onto buses and boats over the weekend, out of the path of the fire which reached several coastal areas from the neighboring mountains. The authorities called it the the largest fire evacuation in the history of Greece. Another 2,500 people were evacuated from the island of Corfu in response to fires there.
In Rhodes, a popular vacation spot and tourist destination, BBC News journalist Azadeh Moshiri on Monday shared an update on the wildfire response from the island’s airport, where, she said, many people were trapped after trying to evacuate.
“People here are extremely frustrated,” Moshiri said, describing a chaotic scene as people rushed and struggled to secure flight arrangements out of the country.
Mixed messages from officials on the status of the wildfires Monday increased confusion over whether Rhodes was safe, Moshiri added, noting that firefighters considered the situation largely under control while the mayor said otherwise.
Greece uses an EU satellite service to estimate fire damage and target resources. Photographs posted online by the service showed an hourglass-shaped brown burn scar in the middle of the island.
The military also helped set up temporary housing in Rhodes, where schools and sports facilities were opened to aid the effort.
A relative respite from the heat on Monday, with highs of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, will be followed by even higher temperatures starting on Tuesday. However, it is expected to be much cooler on Thursday, with temperatures between 30 and 30 degrees Celsius, or about 85 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, the country’s weather service said.
Firefighters across Greece were working Monday to contain 82 wildfires burning across the country. Strong winds on Rhodes, which are expected to intensify throughout the day, have made containment on the island even more difficult, BBC News correspondent Jenny Hill said. reported.
“We are at war, completely focused on the fires,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said during a debate in parliament. “In the coming days and weeks, we must remain on constant alert.”
Aid continued to arrive from the European Union and elsewhere, with firefighting planes from neighboring Turkey joining efforts in Rhodes, where 10 water planes and 10 helicopters flew over flames reaching 16 feet tall despite low visibility.
Ian Murison, a London businessman holidaying with his wife and 12-year-old son in southern Rhodes, described his family’s ordeal as they tried to escape the fires on Saturday.
“We saw flames coming through the hills. Our hotel could accommodate 1,200 people, but there was only one coach waiting,” he said. “There were no procedures in place… We all just grabbed our suitcases and started walking. It took us about 3 kilometers (nearly 2 miles) before we emerged from under the ash cloud.”
The family reached a nearby beach, where they waited – in the dark due to a power outage – with thousands of others, to be evacuated by bus or boat.
“You could see an orange glow in the sky and more and more big fireballs were coming up into the sky,” he said, describing chaotic scenes where evacuees were rushing to board small arriving boats. to take them off the beach.
“It didn’t matter if you had kids, adults were fighting to move on,” Murison said. “It was very, very stressful.”
Overnight, evacuations were also ordered on the western island of Corfu – where more than 2,000 people, including tourists, were taken to safety by land and sea – on the island of Euboea and in a mountainous area of the southern Peloponnese.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen contacted Prime Minister Mitsotakis on Sunday evening to offer further assistance.
“I called (Prime Minister) Mitsotakis to express our full support for Greece, which is facing devastating forest fires and a severe heat wave due to climate change,” she wrote in a tweet.
Addressing Parliament, Mitsotakis also highlighted the threat of climate change, which he said “will make its presence felt even more with greater natural disasters across the entire Mediterranean region.”
Firefighters were investigating the causes of the fires, which raged as an average of 50 new forest fires broke out daily over the past 12 days, according to government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis. On Sunday alone, 64 new fires were recorded.
In Rhodes, the fire raced down mountain slopes, burning houses and cars and leaving dead livestock on the side of the road as they tried to escape.
Authorities said no serious injuries were reported during the evacuations, but hospitals and health volunteers provided first aid to tourists and others, mainly against the effects of heat and dehydration. .
Several airlines, including easyJet and package operator Tui, sent planes to Rhodes to evacuate tourists forced from hotels by the wildfire. The British government said between 7,000 and 10,000 British nationals were on the island, a popular destination for package holidays.
Some tourists said travel agencies failed to provide information or help.
Rhodes is visited by around 2.5 million tourists each year and is one of the most popular holiday destinations in Greece. While some visitors continued to flee the island on Monday, others arrived from several European destinations to start their vacations in resorts not affected by the fire, around 90% of the total, according to Greek authorities.