A young woman has described the terrifying moment she was evacuated from her hotel after wildfires hit a holiday island.
Chloe Smith went away with her parents and her sister for eight nights to the Greek island of Kos.
The 24-year-old was sunbathing around the hotel’s pool when she and her family spotted a thick cloud of smoke in the air.
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A short while later, they received an email from their holiday provider TUI, which read: “We are on standby for evacuation.”
They were alerted that wildfires had broken out and were just six miles away from where they were staying.
At 9pm that evening, they were guided onto a bus to depart the hotel, which was in Kardamena.
“Some people were given phone notification warnings at around 1pm but some didn’t receive them,” Chloe, from Taunton, Somerset, UK, told Luxury Travel Daily.
“At first, we couldn’t see any flames, just smoke coming from behind the hill and then it was on the local news and we could see photos of it looking quite serious.
“At 9pm we were evacuated. We were told to just get on the bus and we had no idea where we were going.
“It was honestly quite scary. We also didn’t know how far our hotel was from the fire at this point as it was dark but the smell of smoke had become stronger.”
After what Chloe described to be a “quiet” bus journey, they arrived at a sports stadium in the town of Antimachia, 15 minutes away from their hotel.
Lots of people were chatting, others were playing football, while children and babies were already becoming restless.
The army had also arrived to supply water, food, blankets and tents.
Eventually, buses came to pick up families with small children and the elderly.
Holiday reps tried their best to reassure evacuees that they would not be staying at the stadium for the whole night and that they were looking to move to a hotel or conference room.
But Chloe, her family and many others were at the stadium for 12 hours – arriving there at 9.30pm and remaining there until 9.45am the next day.
She said: “After a few hours it was becoming apparent that we were going to be there for the night and the mood started to shift.
“There were a few moans and groans and some people were desperate to get blankets.
“After a while there was a hush around the stadium as people were lying on the Astroturf trying to get some sleep.
“There were 8,000 people there in total, and at one point we were sharing two toilets between all of us.
“Both of the toilets ended up becoming flooded so everyone had to use the field.
“In the morning it was total chaos, people were jumping on random buses and hoping that it would take them to their hotel.”
When they arrived back at their hotel, the staff, who had also been at the stadium, had prepared a breakfast for guests.
After enjoying some food, Chloe and her family spent the rest of their day catching up on sleep.
The fires began on Monday 1 July, the day people were evacuated and had calmed down after a couple of days.
Chloe and her family returned home on Thursday 4 July after arriving in Kos on Wednesday 26 June.
“We would also like to thank the army for supplying food, water, blankets and tents, and the bus drivers for driving through the night evacuating everyone and returning us to our hotels the next morning,” Chloe added.
“There was word that the locals were providing blankets, clothes and food to help also.”
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