Fires on Samos
1:42 pm Samos, VotsalakiaOnce again the beautiful island of Samos has been on fire! Thanks to the many fire fighters and to the Greek army, all fires are out! There is no danger and all tourists are back in their hotels by now and enjoy the beaches of Samos.
The latest fire had started on Monday evening in Marathokampos and Limnionas and is under control. This means there are no fires burning currently on Samos Island. Because of the still strong wind, the fire brigades remain in place to prevent any new outbreaks of fire in the area. 26 firemen, 13 fire vehicles, 88 people from the forest department, 70 volunteers, most of them from the volunteer fire brigade in Marathokampos, and four helicopters where fighting the fire for the whole night.
Only three days later the fires started on the other end of Samos and in an area where the wind gain speed going downhill towards the villages. The catastrophic event began on Monday, in the late afternoon, when behind the villages Marathokampos and Limnionas Beach the fire bells rang. Soon after the flames where seen to come down from the hills to the first houses of the villages. The strong winds from the north, that are typical for this season, they are called Meltemi drove the fire forward with speed. Since there are only two streets leading out of the area and goes right through the village of Marathokampos, the evacuation of tourists from hotels was initiated. Tourists got escorted to the waiting busses and with help of the police and the Greek army everything went smooth and without any problems.
As reason for the outbreak of the fire in Votsalakia, on the island of Samos was a family of beekeepers and a friend. Aparently a spark from the bee-keepers’ device to create smoke had ignited the fire when the wind blew in. 10,000 acres of farmland and forests have burned down in less than two days. Thankfully nobody was badly injured. According to our source in Samos, the bee-keepers son was a fire fighter himself.
Samos was just recovering from a large fire that broke out over the village of Kokkari last Tuesday. A lot of help has come very fast from Athens this time. Troupes of fire fighters with fire trucks and equipment have arrived in Samos as fast as humanly possible and the fire was extinguished on Friday the 28th of July. Now that all fires are out, we all hope that we have seen enough fires on Samos for this year!
Top Picture by Carl Osbourn
Gallery Pictures by Karin Bentheim and Michaela Urben
Mary Edwards :
Date: August 6, 2010 @ 8:44 pm
How very sad to see such devastation. Just glad no one died or lost their property.
Mr Glen Holland :
Date: August 8, 2010 @ 9:03 am
i was staying in smaragda appartments in votsalakia, we had no warning of evacuation, even when asking the question, WHEN???? there was no coach waiting, utter caos. was stuck on beach with a wet towel round our heads gasping for air. every one crying . the rep was fantastic in the end, she jumped in the road to stop a random coach, which basicly saved our lives. we were told it was arson. We were found alternative accomadation over night but had no money and were in swimwear, very little communication. had no accomadation the following day, no drinks or lunch, stuck in sun till 6.30 following evening. our rep was fantastic, she seemed to be the only one trying to help the situation, her name was michel. when we arrived back to our accomadation the fires were still smoulderind, the smoke had wrecked our clothes, just to finish off the holiday we had a 24 hr delay at the airport. Once again i would like to say niether the rep or smaragdas appartments were to blame in this terrible mis management to a total nightmare. my wife and son are still crying. Glen Holland
Samiotis :
Date: August 8, 2010 @ 1:21 pm
Hi Glen,
I can see that you had a terrible experience in the resent fire in Samos. Nevertheless, there are a few things in your comment I find disturbing and some very dramatic. For example: “…which basically saved our lives…” I’m absolutely certain that your live was at no point in danger. No houses nor hotels have burned down and nobody got badly injured, so why would your and your families live have been in danger? As I mentioned in the beginning, I’m sure you had a terrible experience in this fire but you where provided with a ride out, even though it took some more effort than on the bus station on Monday morning. Tthis must be understandable given the circumstances. Votsalakia has more than 3000 Tourists in high season and they all wanted out at about the same time. I put some emphasis on the word ‘about’ because not all tourist agencies had informed their reps at the same time about the upcoming or even ongoing evacuation. So, as you correctly say in your comment; chaos! In a chaos nothing is organized, that’s the physics of a chaos. A further positive point on your side; you had Michelle the rep who was responsible for your wellbeing and as you so enthusiastically described, she was fantastic and did a good job. She organized you a ride by risking her live by jumping in front of a bus for you. Furthermore, you where provided with accommodation, which is better than sleeping on the beach, which I’m sure was an alternative for many people. You able to go back to your own accommodation the very next day and found everything back, a bit smoky but there! Nothing got stolen, nothing was burned, it was all there, your money, everything. The people from Apartments Smaragda, I’m sure did what they could to save all your stuff. Now I ask myself where exactly did you see the “terrible Miss-management” ?? You did realize that there was a fire, did you?
Glen, let me tell you what happened in the meantime; in the same time when you had your terrible time in Votsalakia: Hundreds of fire fighters have risked there lives during every minute of the whole time, even when you and your family where safely asleep in the given accommodation. These people have risked their lives to save yours! They’ve been standing there where the fire is hot and the smoke is thick. With water hoses, hacks, axes and chainsaws while their wifes where caring water, coffee and sandwiches. Airplanes and helicopters where in the air to fight the expansion of the flames, so nobody would get hurt. Bus drivers drove there buses through flames and smoke to evacuate people. People where helping people who needed help everywhere. That’s how things work in a fire. Samos has been battered by fires since many years and the people her have a lot of experience. And by the way; it wasn’t arson, it was one of those stupid accidents that just shouldn’t happen anymore! But that’s another story.
I’m telling you this because I was a volunteer fire fighter in Samos myself for several years and I have seen my share on fires from close by. In the fire of 2000 we where very close by for five days and five nights with a few breaks. In my breaks I had time to have a shower, eat a decent meal and visit my bar where people had a good time enjoying there holiday as good as it was possible with electricity from the generator, warm beer and sandwiches for days. It is possible to have a good time even when the circumstances are not calling for it. Should you encounter such a situation again, I strongly suggest you look around yourself and I’m sure within a minute you will find somebody who would appreciate your help and if it’s only with a bit of a pep-talk. There are always people who got it worst then oneself.
George
Karin :
Date: August 8, 2010 @ 4:41 pm
It’s True; it was bad, it was frighting, air was thick from smoke & ashes, true it was chaotic. But most of the tourists were evacuated and most the greek people stayed, one could ask them for advice and they were good i…n spreading confidence. and if the worst would have happened I’m sure all remaining people would have been taken out via the beach if necessary.
I think the agency people were left “in dark” also for a long time and I guess there is no real emergency plan for every village for such an occasion, so they had to wait for instructions and information. btw. the mobile network collapsed from time to time – not improving communication. And given the many people in the area, it went swift…suddenly Votsalakia was a ghost town.
Mr Glen Holland :
Date: August 8, 2010 @ 5:29 pm
Hi, George. i have been to votsalakia 3 times and know how wonderful all the locals are, i have many friends there, i appreciate all the work the fire service and the police provided, i would have helped myself had i had some information, votsalakia and smaragdas is the most wonderful place i have ever stayed in the world, the point i was trying to make is that i was told to stay on the beach and wait for a coach that wasnt coming, i would have gathered the party i was with and ran if i knew which way to run,…. i am presuming the Goerge i am mailing is infact the agent that was managing the situation, for you i have sympathy as it was a hard one to call, but you must understand that we were in real danger , anyway its over. i will be returning to samos votsalakia and smaragdas as i still thing its paradise, and i will be using the same travel company. this note was not ment to disrespect any persons, Thank you for your responce George
Shannon :
Date: August 9, 2010 @ 3:31 pm
I too was there, and although the situation was scary, the local greek people were amazing. We were a large party staying at Mando. When we saw the fire approaching we rang our rep who said the fire was under control, after a wait we rang again, it did not look as if it was under control. Later a rep arrived telling us to fetch passports and tickets and informed us busses would be arriving and taking us out of Votsalakia. Our hotel manager calmed us all down, offered us wet towels to cover our faces with. The locals told us the beach was safe, they were all so calm, telling us they had tried it so many times. Busses eventually arrived, unfortunately some selfish tourists made the evacuation harder by bringing large suitcases onto the busses. Under the circumstances I felt the travel agencies and the local community couldn’t have done more for us. Yes, we had a long wait before we eventually got a nights sleep in a hotel,but with it being high season I hadn’t expected they would be able to get us into accomodation. Everybody worked soo hard to make sure the tourist could return the next day. Our apartments had been cleaned so they gleamed, curtains had been washed, yes, we could smell the smoke, and the town felt a bit eerie on our return, but the locals soon got the holiday spirit back in all of us. A big thank you to a very well managed situation.
K. Popping :
Date: August 12, 2010 @ 6:42 pm
Large appreciation for fire people on the ground and in air. Here a video where they are in action in Kokkari on 29-07-2010
Steve :
Date: August 13, 2010 @ 12:54 am
Sorry to hear about the fires. My wife and I stayed four nights in Pythagoreion at Hotel Labito in May this year (2010). We were on our way from European capitals to our eventual return to Australia via Istanbul. It was our first experience of a Greek Island and it was great. One of the things which struck me was the excellent but poorly attended new EU funded museum in Pythagoreion. It opened in November 2009 and is twice the size of the Samos Town museum. While we were there it was open from 8am to 8pm with very few visitors. I meant to try to get management details so that I could talk to them online and give my Australian university public relations students a project to promote it. But holiday mode made me too slack. Does anybody have a contact there? Can someone copy and forward this message as an email? Steve Mackey