Tourists evacuated from hotels as wildfires tear through Greek islands

Firefighters are battling wildfires on Greece’s popular holiday islands of Kos and Chios, where five people have been injured and hundreds of tourists and locals were forced to evacuate from their homes and hotels overnight.

While wildfires are common in the summer in Greece, prolonged drought, hotter weather and high winds have combined to increase their frequency and intensity across the Mediterranean.

Emergency services issued evacuation orders for people in the Metohi area of western Chios, in the eastern Mediterranean near Turkey, on Monday, telling them to head to a nearby beach as fires approached. More than 140 firefighters, seven planes and three helicopters were trying to tackle the blaze by Monday evening.

A fire department spokesman, Vasilis Vathrakoyiannis, said two firefighters had been lightly injured, while dozens more were heading to the island by boat from nearby Lesbos and from Athens.

State-run ERT TV later reported that another two firefighters and a volunteer had suffered non life-threatening burns.

A view of fire around the island of Kos, Greece on Monday (Photo: Alan Boyle/ Reuters/ UGC)

“The situation remains difficult in Chios, and all Civil Protection forces will make great efforts to limit it,” Mr Vathrakoyiannis said.

On the island of Kos, further south in the Aegean, locals and visitors in the town of Kardamena were transferred to Antimachia as a precaution.

Firefighters try to extinguish a wildfire in Stamata region near Athens, Greece on Sunday (Photo: Costas Baltas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

An estimated 2,000 British tourists were evacuated from their hotels on Kos, according to Good Morning Britain, with some describing “apocalyptic” conditions, and many having to sleep on the floor of an outdoor football pitch and a sports hall.

Steve Fenwick, a British tourist in Kos, who slept the night on the floor of an indoor basketball court with his family, compared the scene to an film, describing the Greek army handing out blankets, food and water.

Clare Smith, 38, from Edinburgh, who was staying at a hotel outside Kardamena in Kos with her family, told Sky News: “It’s really windy here, it will be like a tinderbox. The sky is covered in smoke. You feel like you’re in the apocalypse, or some sort of war film.”

People gather at a football field following evacuations prompted by fires around the island of Kos, Greece (Photo: Alan Boyle/ Reuters/ UGC)

She said they received alerts on their phones telling them to relocate due to the fires. The family and other guests at their hotel waited for most of the evening before they were informed it was being evacuated and coaches were sent to pick them up.

More than 100 firefighters were tackling the flames alongside reinforcements, as well as six water-dropping planes and two helicopters, he added.

The wildfire had mostly abated by Tuesday morning, letting people return, and there was no damage to buildings, Christos Efstratiou, deputy governor for the Dodecanese islands, said.

He added that in the previous 24-hour period, 52 wildfires had broken out, 44 of which were tackled in the early stages. Authorities were still battling eight fires on Monday evening.

An emergency alert has also been issued for Heraklion on Crete.

Over the weekend, firefighters battled three large forest fires near Athens that had been fanned by strong winds and dry conditions, two of which they managed to calm.

Firefighters try to extinguish a wildfire in Stamata region near Athens, Greece on June 30, 2024. (Photo by Costas Baltas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Britons in Greece have been warned by the UK embassy to follow instructions of the Greek authorities and check foreign travel advice on the UK government website.

The Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, warned on Monday that Greece would experience a dangerous summer and that the public’s help was essential in limiting the impact of wildfires.

Smoke rises from a house during a wildfire in Keratea region near Athens, Greece on June 30, 2024. (Photo by Costas Baltas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“We have had an exceptionally difficult June regarding weather conditions, with high levels of drought and unusually strong winds for this season,” he told a cabinet meeting, adding that this summer “is predicted to be particularly dangerous” for wildfires.

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“We are entering the tough core of the anti-fire period, and this will certainly not be won without the help of the public as well, particularly in the field of prevention,” Mr Mitsotakis said.

He said the use of drones as part of an early warning system had been useful this year and credited better co-ordination between authorities and volunteer firefighters for limiting the extent of damage so far.

Last year, more than 20 people were killed in widespread fires across Greece.

Over the weekend, wildfires also continued to tear across the southeast of Turkey amid a severe heatwave during which temperatures surged to over 40°C.