‘Like a disaster movie’: Brit family in Corfu describe holiday horror and escape plan

Family received evacuation order overnight as dozens of blazes erupted on the western island, with more than 2,000 people moved to safety

A British family was forced to flee in the middle of the night as the wildfires ravaging parts of Greece broke out in Corfu on Sunday evening and came within metres of their holiday home.

Rebecca Bell, 50, of Sheffield, was among those who received an evacuation order via a text message overnight as dozens of blazes erupted on the western island, with more than 2,000 people moved to safety.

“It did feel like the end of the world yesterday,” she told The Independent from the village of Sinies, describing the intensity of the heat, “banks of flames” cascading down the hillside, and a “yellow glow of fire” in the sky.

Rebecca Bell, 50, of Sheffield (Rebecca Bell)

The blaze broke out in the northern part of Corfu, which is popular with British tourists, on Sunday evening, with those in Sinies, Santa, Megoula, Porta and Palia Perithia told to evacuate to Kasiopi.

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Firefighters have struggled through the night to contain 82 wildfires across Greece, 64 of which started on Sunday, the hottest day of the summer so far, amid strong winds and successive heatwaves driven by the climate crisis.

The most serious fire was on the island of Rhodes, where 19,000 people had been evacuated from several locations as wildfires burned for a sixth day, Greek authorities said, in what was "the largest evacuation from a wildfire in the country".

Helen Tonks, a mother-of-six from Cheshire, said she was flown into a “living nightmare” at 11pm on Saturday and discovered her hotel had been closed.

She told The Sun newspaper: “We landed and were told ‘Sorry, you can’t go to your hotel – it’s burned down’. We had no idea the fires were this bad or as close to the hotels as they were... We would never have come if we had known.”

Tourists are sheltered in a stadium after being evacuated following a wildfire on the island of Rhodes, Greece (via REUTERS)

Ms Bell, who works for a technology company, arrived at their rented villa in Sinies on Friday with her husband, Mat Pennell, their 18-year-old daughter, and the teenager’s friend for the family’s two-week summer holiday.

They were all about to leave for dinner on Sunday evening when they received the evacuation order. But, unable to see flames, only smoke, and reassured by the villa owner, they decided to continue with their evening plans.

It was when they got into the car after eating and attempted to return to the villa that was the most frightening moment, she said. “We saw banks of flames coming down the hillside and realised it was serious.”

The roads to the village were shut and police cordons were in place, but the family were allowed to collect their passports from the villa. “We packed up in 10 minutes and threw everything into the car,” said Ms Bell. “I’ve never packed a bag that quickly in my life.

A wildfire burning on the Pantokratoras mountain on Corfu island, Greece (EPA)

“When we were up there by the villa it was hot, you could feel the heat. The fire was perhaps about 400 metres from our villa.”

She spoke of giant fire and water trucks driving up the hill as they were coming back down.

The family went to the evacuation point Kasiopi but said there was nothing happening there, so they sat in the car until about 2am when they realised they would not be making it back to the villa that night.

“It felt weird driving around like, ‘What do we do now?’ It was bizarre, very disaster movie-esque,” said Ms Bell.

They spoke with a local businessperson who let the family stay in his home for the night. “Because we had rented privately it was down to us to work out our next move, and we ended up with some kind strangers,” Ms Bell said. “My husband and I slept on the sofa in the man’s living room, which was super kind and amazing to be so welcoming to people in such a crazy situation.”

A firefighting helicopter drops water to extinguish a wildfire, in Diakopto, Egio, Greece (EPA)

She said they did not sleep a huge amount and heard helicopters presumably dropping water on the hillside at sunrise.

The family managed to make it back to the villa on Monday morning, shortly before receiving a text message that advised people to return to their accommodation as “the situation is under control and the fire is receding”.

Ms Bell said smoke can still be seen rising in the hills but the yellow glow of fire has been replaced by clear skies. “The fire looked pretty close to the villa, but nothing has burned,” she said.

Claire Jones, 36, who was celebrating her honeymoon on Rhodes, has spoken of her “traumatic” experience after she and her husband Paul, also 36, were forced to evacuate their hotel, the Village Rhodes Beach Resort near Lardos, by coach on Saturday.

They were driven to another beach where they were placed on three different boats to escape from the wildfires currently ripping through the Greek island.

“It was really quite traumatic driving to where we went because you could see everyone fleeing their hotels, and people were walking along the beaches, walking along the roads, and they had babies and small children,” Ms Jones, from Leicestershire, said.

Before the coaches arrived, Ms Jones recalled: “When we got to the car park and you could see the fires getting closer and closer and closer, and the coaches weren’t turning up […] that was really worrying. When we first got on the coach, that was the most scary, because I thought, if that wind blows towards us, that fire is going to hit this coach.”

Ms Jones added she and her husband are “very lucky” as they managed to flee to Faliraki in the north of the island, where they had planned to stay later in their trip.