Rhodes fires: flights cancelled as thousands of tourists and residents evacuated on Greek island

for a country that's used to fighting wildfires because of the smoke even by Greek standards this is terrifying the government says the evacuation of the island of Rhodes is the largest in its history for Janina and her two children A Place in the Sun descended into a holiday on the run the climate emergency is poolside Parkway for our lunch and people started running in saying we need to get out and it was so quick we've all run down to the beach um and then they just kept telling us just to keep moving down the beach I mean it got to the point where no one could see everyone had to like cover their faces and everyone was like you know couldn't breathe properly but I had my 11 year old and my seven-year-old and who obviously terrified thinking we're gonna die and then these local people just came because so many people were just coming with boats and just chucked us on a boat and just went off it just really spread really really fast but at one point but I couldn't contact my family and someone said that the whole Beach was gone I did think that they're all dead Janina is reunited with her family now sleeping in a Sports Hall on a safer part of the island others spent the night on beaches and streets tour operators jet2 and Tui canceled flights leaving for roads as thousands lined up to get out while EasyJet says it's operating as normal but customers can change flights is this the risk we now take holidaying and record-breaking heat waves hear a firefighter begs a tourist to abandon her suitcase in Rome where soaring temperatures also broke records the pope had this message for world leaders we are experiencing here and in many countries extreme climatic events I renew my appeal to the leaders of the Nations to do something more concrete to limit polluting emissions it's an urgent Challenge and cannot be put off it concerns everyone in Greece everyone's a firefighter climate change is driving hotter Summers and there are warnings of wildfires in almost half of the country holidays are ruined but homes are lost too our heart is here she says please save us the tourists will fly back to their homes while the Islanders have just lost theirs Emily with a reporting well a short while ago I talked to the former firefighter and Wildfire expert Lyndon Pronto I began by asking him what conditions are like for firefighters on roads essentially you're up against extreme conditions extreme heat high winds low relative humidity which is found in the Flames even more is making the vegetation more explosive and so you have very um you know difficult conditions which don't allow for containment very easily and in a chaotic situation like this the first and foremost point is to help people get out and safe and so the strategy for actually containing the fire is is kind of in the second place these fires have been burning in the interior of the island of Rhodes for some time now they've now reached their Resorts which is why we've noticed them um how good a job are the Greek authorities doing in containing this file well one has to say I mean this this isn't really up to the authorities this is nature um when you have high winds and fires spreading at that rate of spread you can't really do much whether you're an authority or whether you're a firefighter what you can do is basically get out of the way and wait for better weather first of all it's extremely dangerous there has to be a cost-benefit analysis in terms of what you know what is actually being effective in terms of the containment strategies under such conditions you're the effectiveness of your extinguishing abilities are very limited should tourists stay away from these areas I mean is that what you would advise people to do not to get on planes to roads right now absolutely I think we have an awareness of you know we monitor tropical storms on you know on the daily weather reports and fire weather is predictable it is forecastable so this this needs to be also integrated into our communication uh strategies in terms of informing tourists I think the tourism sector it's a multi-billion dollar sector um they could also do more in terms of preparing tourists tourists are are fueling a lot of these communities that has to be said and that's what makes it a conundrum that's what makes it a well you don't want to scare people away because their livelihoods depend on tourism and if I look at the the imagery that's flowing out of Roads right now it's a very fine line between everybody making their way to the beach um in crowds like that but if the fire were actually in that area or crossing the road or if they became trapped we would have hundreds of fatalities I mean it would be an absolute catastrophe what would you advise people to do tourists so that would you know cope between the flames and the Sea you know one thing could be you have a go bag if you know you're going into a an area that could be prone to a environmental disaster which you would have to get out just having something ready having some drinking water and then you've got fires in Canada you've got fires in the canaries I mean it seems to be really bad this year is it unusually bad um I think it's it's too early to tell certainly we have a simultaneous of events going on on different continents suffice to say this is the new normal um having extreme fires occurring in one place or another and it's time that we actually um you know learn to live with fire is what we say in the fire management Community you know what can we do to kind of adapt to this what you call the new normal you know to live with these fires to make sure that they're not quite as ferocious as they appear to be at the moment as institutions we manage the fuels we protect our infrastructure um we invest in prevention awareness raising we invest in programs in schools that people take individual responsibility for protecting their homes their crops their livestock and then of course there's you know funding which is always a big issue especially in an economically hard hit country like Greece I'm happy to see your fire jacket hanging on the peg there behind you is that just in case you're always prepared well I don't do uh much active firefighting anymore but what I do do is a lot of work in prescribed burning so yeah I get I get to play with fire a lot good fire as we like to call it we need more good fire in these Landscapes and and less fire suppression uh reaction uh fire we'll take you out for Linden fascinating thank you very much thank you for having me

Channel: Channel 4 News

Views: 182,513

Keywords: Channel 4 News, rhodes, fire, news, wildfire, should i travel to greece, rhodes fires, heatwave, climate change, the pope, climate pope

Id: Iy9WnyEEIRg

Length: 7min 1sec (421 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 23 2023