Film-maker Steve Watson, from Newark, trapped on Rhodes as wildfires spread

A film-maker on holiday on Rhodes has sent a series of videos depicting the chaos and uncertainty gripping the island as wildfires continue to burn.

Steve Watson, from Newark, is holidaying on Rhodes with wife Mandy to celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary and said it was one neither of them would ever forget.

They and daughter Amy Matthews, owner of AJ’s School of Dance, her husband Scott, and their two children, have now been moved to four different hotels across the island to stay ahead of the fierce wildfires that have led to mass evacuations.

Phone conversations have proved difficult due to a lack of signal. Steve has been able to Whatsapp videos to the Advertiser where he describes the continually-developing situation as thick clouds of smoke billow in the background.

He was able to get through by phone this evening and said all of the party were now safe, away from risk, and would be waiting it out rather than joining the scrum of 19,000 at the Rhodes International Airport trying to fly out.

Earlier in the day video showed smoke several miles away, but with the wind blowing in their direction.

The party was initially staying at the Atlantica Hotel on the island when fires broke out.

In one phone call this morning that was interrupted, he said: “Fire broke out on the ridge.

“4,000 people were evacuated to our hotel and like a military operation, they fed them all – and credit to them.

“It wasn’t really until the night time that the chaos set in. One of the hotel managers turned into Basil Fawlty. Six coaches were coming from Tui, but then people were sent blindly into the darkness along roads.

“People were carrying their kids and nothing but the bare essentials, which is all that we took.”

In a video Steve talked about the uncertainty surrounding the information he was receiving and what the evacuation plan is, if there is one.

At one point it is suggested that boats are coming while there’s also talk of coaches and an unwillingness to use the roads to come and fetch them.

Steve describes a free-for-all as people try to flee with little or no direction in what is a constantly shifting picture.

In a later video clip, he said the situation had flipped on a sixpence and that they were being evacuated by taxi to the next village to stay ahead of the smoke.

In this evening’s call, Steve said a local shopkeeper had arranged for them to be transported to a place of safety.

Steve said: “We said we didn’t want to be evacuated, they said we must. There’s 19,000 people to be evacuated from that airport and the organisation is poor.

“Instead we’ve been driven to the opposite coast, the northerly part of the island where we’ll wait it out until at least Saturday which is when we were due to leave anyway.

“We’re not going anywhere near that airport.

“Hopefully by then we might be able to get back to our original hotel for our stuff, but the road is currently blocked.

“There was panic getting out. We had an OAP walk out straight in front of our bus in the dark to get us take more people on board. There must have been 3,000 people at the side of the road, all of them terrified.

“There are people who have lost everything.

“It’s one anniversary that neither Mandy or me will ever forget.”

It comes at a time where British tourists in Rhodes and Corfu are scrambling to get home in what is Greece's largest disaster evacuation ever.

Families have slept on floors in Rhodes International Airport and sports halls for what will be a third night.

Temperatures hit 45C today officials have warned the situation could yet get even worse.