Anastassia Pissaka, a pharmacist, was sitting outside the blackened remains of a cafe in Kiotari, ready to volunteer in case local people needed medicines. Her pharmacy had survived, even as the flames completely destroyed the neighbouring business, causing what many in the local area view as needless damage.
Local people on the Greek island of Rhodes who spoke to the Guardian felt let down by their local government, which they considered too slow to react when the fires started early last week, with the result that when the winds picked up they spread into the populated tourist areas that fuel the local economy. The landscape was ravaged, some buildings were destroyed, and local people and tourists were evacuated.
“The majority of the island is supported by tourism; even if you’re not directly affected [by the fires], everyone is,” Pissaka said. “Our income is based through the summer season, let’s say six months. There will be a big problem if tourists don’t come back because how will we pass the winter? I don’t know what the government will do. We need support.”
She expressed a view shared by many local people: “The government did not respond immediately to Rhodes. The news only showed us the fires after the sixth day. My friends were calling TV channels asking them to show it. Here the fire was not stopping.”
The owner of the damaged cafe next to Pissaka, Giorgos Papageorgiou, was anxious about whether his insurance would pay out, and uncertain about the level of government support he could receive. His cousin had lost his livelihood, as he had failed to keep up with insurance payments and his restaurant had burned down.
He was desperate for tourists to return: “We have a big catastrophe here in Rhodes, but we’ll start a new life, for tomorrow we’ll start to fix Rhodes. We love tourists, we hope they will come again.”
Konstantinos Taraslias, vice-mayor of Rhodes and spokesperson for the municipality, acknowledged that many local people felt “very angry” with the response.
“People think that the operation was not done very quickly, and they blame everyone who’s possible from the politicians, the government, the region, the municipality. They think that they didn’t fight as much as is possible but believe me this is not true because a lot of fire forces came locally and from abroad,” he said.
He said there had been more than 300 firefighters and 10 planes or helicopters deployed, but the unprecedented nature of the fire reaching tourist areas and the high winds made the wildfire’s direction difficult to predict.
He expected the fire to be extinguished on Thursday, though it was impossible to be certain. He said the mayor had asked the courts to investigate what had happened, and a meeting took place on Tuesday with Greek ministers to discuss support for businesses.
Another key focus for the government is minimising the financial damage to the tourist industry, which represents 90% of the local economy. “There are 220,000 hotel beds in Rhodes, and in the tourist part of the area hit by the fires, there are only 10,000 beds. It’s not a very good advertisement for Rhodes that the fire happened. That makes people more angry because they’re worried about what happens to the economy after the natural disaster,” said Taraslias.
He added that the government planned to learn lessons from the wildfires, including better planning for extreme weather and fires, and supporting people to protect their properties from fires.
In the meantime, he urged tourists with bookings for the unaffected parts of the island to return: “The island is open and waiting.”
This view was echoed by Antonis Stamou, the general manager at Lindos Imperial hotel in Kiotari, an upmarket resort town which was badly hit by the fire. Speaking in an eerily empty hotel, he said the building had been protected by staff using extinguishers, and they worked with firefighters. As a result it received only minor damage to the pool, where equipment overheated, and staff had spent the five days since tourists were evacuated cleaning the hotel of ash.
Electricity had still not returned on Wednesday, but he expected it within two days. Representatives from Jet2 and Tui were visiting to determine when they could bring back guests, though Stamou hoped they would reconsider their decision to cancel trips until 31 July as the hotel is taking a major financial hit. “We think people can come back sooner. It’s not possible for the fires to come back to this hotel because everything is burned.”
Others were less sanguine. Giorgos Anastassas, 20, who works in his family’s restaurant, Panorama Tsampikas in Archangelos, said he had lost faith in the government after feeling that official messaging and a “chaotic” response had failed to match up with observations made by friends and family. He said the weekend had been a “living hell” and he had spent the following days fearing the fire would make its way to his home and business.
“Everything was out of control. It was so bad, I can’t describe it. [The government] didn’t help us the way we deserve. It was a disaster – it was so bad, so miscalculated, because the fire had been controllable in the first three days,” he said, adding that local people were discussing launching a protest when the fires end.
Nikos Giannias, 28, who runs a tourist shop in Olimpia, said he was “a little bit scared” because despite his shop being located half an hour’s drive from the fires, cancellations by Tui had left the area without tourists. “Summer stops here. It’s destroyed financially. And we can’t work in the winter.”
He was sleeping four hours a night to volunteer alongside the firefighters, drawing on experience from his obligatory Greek military service. He said the fires had appeared under control on Wednesday, but had picked up in the afternoon. In the meantime, he said: “Your life is 50-50, sometimes the fire encircles you, and you don’t know if you will come back.”
