‘A near-death experience’: UK tourists describe escape from Rhodes wildfires | Greece

Dean Mason, 56, from Rothley in Leicestershire, described getting caught up in the Rhodes wildfires as a “near-death experience”.

Mason arrived at a hotel in Kiotari beach a week ago with his wife, daughter, and four-year-old granddaughter.

“It was my granddaughter’s first holiday abroad. By Tuesday morning, we could see large plumes of smoke coming up from the centre of the island,” the IT project manager said.

“We were led to believe everything was under control. Nobody seemed particularly concerned.

“On Friday evening it was getting quite bad, there were bits of ash falling on us, but we were again assured by the hotel everything was OK. We spent Saturday morning in the pool. It was nice and very hot, and a lot windier than on previous days.

“By 11.30am on Saturday I could see very large plumes of smoke suddenly looking not a million miles away from where we were. People started to look at one another. Not long after that you could see the sky was starting to fill with smoke. Within five minutes, I could see flames on the hillside around us. Then the hotel alarm went off.”

The family rushed back to their room to pack some hand luggage and grab their passports before fleeing to the beach.

“There was just a lot of hotel staff going ‘Get out, get out’,” Mason said. “There was a complete lack of any structured support. There was a lot of hysteria. You were being coated in ash, the sun was completely covered by yellow smoke.”

The family was split up as local people took them to two different nearby communities on boats, before they were reunited a few hours later and dropped in the centre of Lindos.

“There were just hundreds of coaches and thousands of people just desperate to go somewhere. It felt like the end of days,” Mason said.

Eventually, the family were able to secure seats on a plane back to the UK.

“We got back to Birmingham early Sunday morning. Being asked to fill in a questionnaire [by a travel rep] after this near-death experience wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. Our belongings are still at the hotel, but I think we were incredibly fortunate to get out of there.”

Adam Walker, 33, a business analyst from Telford, flew to Rhodes on Friday night with his wife, mother-in-law and two young children, for a holiday in the popular beach resort of Pefkos on the east coast of the island.

“We arrived at 2am on Saturday. When we were in the pool that afternoon we could see smoke in the distance, and a red glow on top of the hill. There was ash falling on us during dinner. At midnight on Saturday we were told by text message to leave our hotel and move to the beach. It was absolute chaos,” Walker said.

“There was mixed messaging about whether to take bags or not. After about half an hour we were told to walk about half a kilometre to the top of the hill with our bags, but there was no information from anyone about where we were going. Everyone was upset as they were trying to figure out where to send people as it was happening.” Eventually, Walker said, buses came and took scores of holidaymakers to Rhodes town.

“We were left at a school, where we got our towels and clothes out and lay on tiles. There were power cuts and at times no running water, with toilets overflowing.”

Walker was disappointed to find there was no direct support and communication from his travel operator during the evacuation. “There were no representatives anywhere. We were helped by local Greek volunteers, lots of students turned up at some point. There wasn’t much sleeping going on.”

Walker said his family had no idea there were fires raging in the area before they set off from the UK. “We hadn’t seen it at all on the news. It all kicked off properly the day we landed.”

The family spent all day at the school and were told on Sunday evening that they would be able to board a plane back to the UK free of charge.

“At some point on Sunday, people were told they could go back to the resort [by the travel operator], which some people did before being evacuated again.

“We didn’t know where the flights were going in the UK, and were asked to put down a preference for where we wanted to go.”

The family arrived back in Birmingham on Monday morning, with some of their belongings still at their hotel in Pefkos. Walker said he had yet to contact the travel company for a refund.

“We didn’t have time to pack everything,” he said. “I know you cannot plan for the fires, and understand this year’s fires are extreme, but they could have had an evacuation plan in place in case something like this happened.”