A WILDFIRE fanned by gale-force winds burned through the night and into today on Crete, prompting the evacuation of more than 1,500 people from hotels and homes on the southern Greek island.

The fire service said that 230 firefighters backed up by 10 water-dropping aircraft were battling the flames, which have burned through forest and farmland in Crete’s Ierapetra area on the island’s south coast. 

Two people were evacuated by boat overnight, while six private boats were on standby in case further evacuations by sea became necessary, the coastguard said.

Homes were damaged as flames swept through hillside forests, driven by strong winds.

“It’s a very difficult situation. The fire is very hard to contain. Right now, they cannot contain it,” Nektarios Papadakis, a civil protection official at the regional authority, told reporters.

The fire service and a civil protection agency issued mobile phone alerts for the evacuations and appealed to residents not to return to try to save their property.

As fires crested ridgelines and edged towards residential areas, the blaze sent clouds of ash into the night sky, illuminated by the headlights of emergency vehicles and water lorries that lined the coastal road near the resorts of Ferma and Achlia in the south-east of Crete.