Evacuations on Rhodes – NRC

At least 19,000 people have been evacuated from the Greek island of Rhodes due to ongoing wildfires threatening holiday resorts and coastal villages. The fires started last week and have now spread across the entire island. The Dutch travel organizations TUI and Corendon and the British Jet2 are not bringing new travelers to Rhodes for the time being.

The Greek Ministry of the Environment speaks of the “largest evacuation due to a forest fire in the country”. According to local authorities, 16,000 people were brought to safety by land and 3,000 people by sea. It concerns both tourists and residents from twelve villages on the island, which has more than 125,000 inhabitants.

The evacuees found shelter in schools, bomb shelters, town halls, libraries, hotels, indoor stadiums and on boats, where they received food, water and medical assistance. Crowds gathered in the streets under a red sky, as smoke hung heavy over the deserted coast. Several thousand people spent the night outside, on the street or on the beach, while yellow firefighting planes scooped up loads of water from the sea.

British tourist Amy Leyden described to Sky News the “terrifying” experience of the evacuation with her 11-year-old daughter. “We were walking down the road at two in the morning and the fire overtook us. I didn’t think we would make it.”

Boats from the Greek coast guard and the army are being deployed in the large-scale evacuation. They are assisted by dozens of private boats moored near the island. Tourists are transferred to other hotels or islands, or given the choice to go home. At least three hotels are said to have already been engulfed by the fire.

The local fire service receives help from firefighters from Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Slovakia, among others. Only a handful of injuries have been reported so far.

Longest Greek heat wave ever

Forest fires are also raging elsewhere in Greece, where temperatures reached 45 degrees this weekend, including in the south of the Peloponnese peninsula and in the vicinity of the capital Athens. This heat wave in Greece is expected to be the longest the country has ever experienced.

Wildfires are increasing in size and intensity due to high temperatures and a lack of moisture in the trees, shrubs, grasses and forest detritus – factors that scientists say are being influenced by climate change. Research shows that changes in climate are creating warmer, drier conditions, leading to longer fire seasons and brighter fires.