British Tourists Flee Greek Forest Fires

Up to 1,500 British holidaymakers were evacuated and 1,000 spent the night camped out on beaches last night after forest fires tore through a holiday resort in northern Greece.

The fires, on the Halkidiki peninsula, close to the resorts of Polychrono and Hanioti, were driven by strong winds, dry conditions and a late summer heatwave with temperatures soaring up to 42C across southeast Europe. Fire officers said the blazes may have been started by lightning strikes.

British tourist Jo Leaney told the BBC how the flames forced her from her holiday flat "with only the belongings we had on us" when the building "suddenly filed with smoke".

Elaine Willan, from Rainham in Kent, said that the beach had become crowded with the number of evacuees. "People were being turned back because they'd gone as far as they could go, there was nowhere else to go," she told the BBC.

The Foreign Office said this morning that the fire was being brought back under control and that there were no reports of British casualties.

Thomas Cook said that 428 of its customers were staying in one of the affected resorts and First Choice said it had 200 people staying in Hanioti. The Federation of Tour Operators said that 1,500 people taking holidays with its member companies were staying in the affected areas.

"At the moment we are going around the town telling everyone to go on the beach so we can account for them," a First Choice spokeswoman said.

"We believe the majority of people are now on the beach, but all the tour operators are working together to make sure that people have been accounted for."

The Greek government declared the fire-struck area a disaster zone yesterday, and the chief of the country's fire brigade Alexander Kois said the flames were spreading across a seven-mile front.

Forest fires are a seasonal hazard in Greece and destroy more than 100,000 hectares of countryside every summer.

Hundreds of British holidaymakers were driven from the resort island of Corfu in 2000 by out-of-control fires, and the EU last year warned that drought and human negligence were prompting an increase in the problem across the Mediterranean. ends