Rhodes

Standing outside the blackened shell of what used to be his restaurant, Dimitris Hajifotis laments a livelihood lost to wildfires raging on the Greek island of Rhodes this week.

"My life now stopped," he said. "Everything is taken by the fire."

Most of the 53 new wildfires that broke out in the country in the last 24 hours were "dealt with immediately, in their initial stages," the Fire Service has said in its daily bulletin.

"Powerful ground and air forces … are operating at the fire fronts, the most important of which are developing in Rhodes and Corfu," it said.

Authorities have called on people in Plimmiri and Lachania, two southern Rhodes villages, to evacuate in the direction of Apolakkia due to wildfires in the area in a message sent via the emergency number 112.

A short time earlier, residents in Genadi and Vati, also on Rhodes, were ordered to evacuate to Lindos, for the same reason.

Classic rock melodies by Eric Clapton and Deep Purple drift from a shaded courtyard in the seaside town of Ialysos on the northern coast of Rhodes as Jake gently strums his guitar. It's his way of finding comfort, and of thanking Irini Papastamati for opening her home to him and his family after they fled the wildfires roaring across the southeastern Aegean island since last week.

Greece battled to contain wildfires on the island of Rhodes for a seventh day on Tuesday, as hundreds of tourists who had been forced to evacuate in previous days were expected to fly back to their countries.

A week-old wildfire on the Greek resort island of Rhodes tore past defenses Monday, forcing more evacuations as strong winds and successive heat waves that left scrubland and forests tinder-dry fueled three major fires raging elsewhere in Greece.

Firefighters battled all night to control persistent wildfires on the islands of Rhodes, Evia and Corfu, as well as in Achaia in the Peloponnese, as strong winds, soaring temperatures and tinder-dry conditions continued to stoke the flames into Tuesday morning, when water-dumping aircraft joined efforts on the ground.

The political leadership of the Ministry of Tourism was engaged in a race to deal with the crisis in the tourism industry on Monday, following the massive fire on the island of Rhodes.

Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni, as well as her deputy, Elena Rapti, arrived on the island on Sunday, in order to help manage the situation.

Rhodes' iconic fallow deer - statues of which stand as emblems at the entrance to the southeastern Aegean island's Mandraki Harbor - are being decimated by the raging wildfire tearing through forests, hillside villages and seaside resorts.

Since the resurgence on Saturday of the wildfires on the island of Rhodes forced the evacuation of thousands of tourists, the hashtag #Rhodes has been trending in the United Kingdom.