My family with four kids was left running for our lives from the Rhodes fires – we waded neck-deep in water to escape

A BRITISH dad-of-four has described his family's hell as they fled the Rhodes inferno in the dead of night.

PE Teacher Daniel Jones had to wade into the ocean neck deep to get his young family onto a pleasure boat to escape the flames that chased them.

Daniel, 37, was holidaying with wife Hannah, 35, and their four kids, Ethel, 2, Oliver, 5, Albert, 7 and Rupert, 9, when they were evacuated from their luxury hotel at 10pm Saturday night.

The family, from Exeter, Devon, was staying at the Atlantica Dreams Resort in Gennadi along with grandparents Shirley, 68, and Gary, 72, when the sky turned orange and filled with smoke.

Daniel told The Sun: "We only arrived in Rhodes on Friday night, so Saturday was our first day by the pool. 

"At around 12pm I looked up and the sun had disappeared and there was a long trail of smoke going on for miles.

"Eventually the whole hotel was shrouded in smoke, and there was an orange glow on the hillside. It was really eerie."

Daniel said over the course of the day hundreds of other holidaymakers arrived at their hotel having been evacuated from other resorts on the island.

"It was chaos, the lobby was like Heathrow airport. We packed our bags ready to leave but there was no communication from the tour operator about what we should do.

"Eventually an evacuation alarm sounded in the hotel and the manager said we all had to leave on foot.

"We just followed the crowds and walked into the night dragging our cases and my wife pushing a buggy. The kids were exhausted, upset and crying and there was hysteria, a sense of panic.

"At some point a TUI rep said there were six coaches coming to pick us up and told us to wait, but nothing came. It was the hotel manager who told us to keep walking for our own safety.

"Eventually we bumped into two men from the Red Cross who told us we had to go to the beach."

Daniel said there was 400 people stranded on the beach in the pitch black.

It has been a nightmare, our holiday has been ruined and the kids traumatised

Daniel Jones

"There was still a lot of confusion, it was madness. There were no reps or anyone to tell us what was happening. 

"There was a moment where you could clearly see the flames moving closer but there were no boats to escape, I felt completely powerless to protect my family."

Daniel said eventually some locals brought two pleasure cruisers into the shore and started loading people on.

"We were among the last to leave and I had to wade into the water with the kids. I was up to my neck and had to help them climb the ladder," he recalls.

"The kids were wearing pyjamas and were crying and soaked, it was awful, they were scared, it was heartbreaking to see."

Daniel said they sat on the boat for an hour and a half offshore while the captain worked out where he was going to take everybody.

They were eventually taken up the coast to the north of the island before being bungled on to a minibus and taken to a local school with dozens of other families.

"The locals have been amazing, they've given us food and drinks, but now we just want to go home, the whole experience has been pretty traumatic, especially for the children."

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Daniel and hundreds of other Brits are trying to arrange transport back to the UK.

He added: "It has been a nightmare, our holiday has been ruined and the kids traumatised. 

"TUI are talking about taking us back to the hotel, but there's no way the kids will want to go back there after what's happened, we want to get home."

Up to 19,000 locals and tourists, including many Brits, have been forced to flee in the biggest evacuation effort Greece has ever seen as the fires on the popular island rage on.

Local police said that 16,000 people were evacuated by land and 3,000 by sea from 12 villages and several hotels.

Over 250 firefighters, helicopters, water-bombers and emergency rescuers are battling the worst blaze the country has ever experienced.

The fire, which broke out in the mountains on Tuesday, has been aided by strong winds and is engulfing large parts of the central-southern parts of the island, burning down buildings and hotels.

Yiannis Artopios, a fire service spokesman, said: “The focus now is to contain two major fronts in the south and central part of the island.

"The regions hit so far may account for less than 10 per cent of the island’s hotel infrastructure, but if left unchecked the blazes can threaten the remaining 90 per cent.”

Although hotter, drier and windy summers have brought more fires in recent years, it has not been confirmed how the wildfire first started.

Artopios said authorities were questioning suspected arsonists.

“Fires are not sparked on their own,” he told Skai TV. “They are triggered by the human hand, be it intentionally or not.

"We currently have several people being questioned in connection with their probable involvement.”

Extraordinary scenes show columns of tourists and locals travelling on foot and carrying their belongings and children down dusty roads.

Busloads of fleeing Brits were taken to makeshift camps in gyms, schools and hotel conference centres where they staged overnight on the floor.

British Embassy officials in Athens urged Brits to leave the area on Saturday evening - as flights to Rhodes continue to be cancelled.

Horror footage emerged of scores of people with young children desperately waiting to be loaded onto boats in total darkness as fires burned in the background.

Another British tourist who was forced to escape from the fires, described it feeling like "the end of the world".

Londoner Ian Morrison was staying in the Kiotari area when he watched the sea become "black with soot" and ash fall on people's heads.