Greece wildfire forces more to flee popular island resort Rhodes

A week-old wildfire on the Greek resort island of Rhodes tore past defenses Monday, forcing more evacuations after 19,000 left over the weekend.

A week-old wildfire on the Greek resort island of Rhodes tore past defenses Monday, forcing more evacuations as strong winds and successive heat waves that left scrubland and forests tinder-dry fueled three major fires raging elsewhere in Greece.

The latest evacuations were ordered in south Rhodes after 19,000 people, mostly tourists, were moved in buses and boats over the weekend out of the path of the fire that reached several coastal areas from nearby mountains. It was the country’s biggest evacuation effort in recent years.

“We are at war — completely focused on the fires,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said during a debate in parliament. “Over the coming days and weeks, we must remain on constant alert.”

Help continued to arrive from the European Union and elsewhere, with firefighting planes from neighboring Turkey joining the effort on Rhodes, where 10 water-dropping planes and 10 helicopters buzzed over flames up to 5 meters (16 feet) tall despite low visibility.

Temperatures reached the low 40s Celsius (above 104 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of the Greek mainland Monday, a day after soaring as high as 45 degrees (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

Ian Murison, a businessman from London on vacation in southern Rhodes with his wife and 12-year-old son, described his family’s ordeal as they tried to escape the fires on Saturday.

“We saw flames coming over the hills. Our hotel had capacity for 1,200 (people), but there was just one coach waiting,” he said. “We all just took our cases and started walking. It was about 3 kilometers (nearly 2 miles) before we got out from underneath the ash cloud.”

The family reached a nearby beach, where they waited — in the dark due to a power blackout — with thousands of others to be evacuated by bus or boat.