A week in Corfu: ‘The smoke is rolling down towards this house ... I have my go-bag: laptop, spare shirt, detective novel’

It’s Monday afternoon and I am taking coffee at the village kafeneion (which is also the internet cafe, the post office and the gossip centre). Usually I would be passing the pre-lunch period by counting the stream of tourists – quad bikes, safari jeeps, minibuses and private car rentals – on their way up the mountain to the deserted village of Palaia (Old) Perithia. Deserted by its inhabitants for at least 60 years, roofless now but still preserved with its manor-house, farm buildings, cottages, school, bakery and many churches, it is a magnet for the curious. And the seven – yes, seven – tavernas which cater for them.

Not today. Last night, raging forest fires destroyed about 20,000 acres of mountainside up there. So today, instead of tourists, I am counting the firefighting planes which scoop up the nearby seawater, fly over our heads and dump it on the still-smouldering fires.

From first light this morning, the four aircraft and three helicopters which had to set down at sunset were back at work, supplementing the fire services on the ground.

Seventeen villages across the northeast of the island, involving 2,466 people, were evacuated on Sunday night, most of them inhabited by Corfiots with only a few tourists involved, unlike Rhodes, where The Irish Times and the Greek media report far worse conditions for holidaymakers.

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My main focus in the cafe gossip is on the people who live here – village-born Corfiots, Albanians (we are only a couple of miles from the Albanian coast) and blow-ins like myself, of whom there are a small number of full-time residents.

It may seem cynical not to focus on the tourists, some of whom are no doubt stranded, many of whom are reconsidering whether to travel to Greece this week. But the people among whom I live – even though they derive their main income from tourism – are more important to the social and cultural environment than the market they serve. It is their home, not ours.

Catastrophes of this kind are a fact of life. Like some other (but by no means all) Greek islands, Corfu is fertile, with heavily wooded mountainsides – the huge olive plantations which are the legacy of the 400-year Venetian rule, the tall funereal cypresses, the almond trees and sycamores. With temperatures quite often in the range of 35-37 degrees, wildfires are commonplace.

The public warnings about the dangers of fires due to the immense heat and the dryness of leaf and grass are a regular feature of life in summer. A cigarette end carelessly discarded, or a DIY barbecue overturned, can cause a conflagration. For this reason, it’s illegal to light a fire between the end of April and the end of October, with serious penalties, not least being the disapprobation of one’s neighbours.

It would be idiotic to say that people take all this in their stride (especially since local gossip suggests that at least one of these fires was started deliberately), but, like water shortages and power cuts, these are familiar accidents of rural life. This week, in addition to the fires, we had a small earthquake of 3.3 on the Richter scale. Nothing really to worry about.

The extent of the fire – right across the mountain range of the north of the island – is unusual. I don’t remember anything as extensive since 2000, when I first understood how fire can jump across a road or clearing. A frightening thing to observe the power of its intangible hunger, but perhaps not so frightening as the fact that that fire destroyed a priceless 18th-century library. As the director of the rare books Durrell Library here in Perithia, I respect that power.

The novelty is only in the ferocity of the blaze, not in the happening. In 2018, Mati, a small seaside holiday settlement near Athens, frequented by both Athenians and foreign visitors, was the site of a devastating fire which caused 104 deaths and destroyed 2,500 buildings. However tragic such a death toll may be, it was a singular event of colossal proportions which, despite the factor of human error that was definitely involved, was unprecedented.

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The loss of tourist revenue from this week’s fires in Perithia – especially for local businesses – is of course damaging. Particularly when holidaymakers are still clawing back time from the Covid pandemic, tourism is Greece’s most important industry. About 20 per cent-plus of the regular workforce are employed, but around here almost everyone over the age of six is involved in the business, from May to October. And in economic terms, tourism accounts for at least 25 per cent of GDP, and given the economic outlook, it remains the key growth area. Resorts – which provide all-in catering and entertainment – are the government’s preferred means of development, despite the fact that they contribute very little to the local economy and create unsightly sprawls on the landscape. We have two of these resorts nearby, and we seldom see their inmates.

The tavernas up at Palaia Perithia, like that of my friend Tomas, will suffer in the very short term from the current blaze. In fact, Tomas is so busy with trade at this time of year that I can’t visit him until the tourist season abates. He surprises his guests by serving only what would have been eaten and drunk by local people: organic lamb, chicken and cockerel, local wines. No whiskey, no fancy wines, no crêpes suzettes. When asked by Rick Stein (in whose programme he featured in 2008), “Why do you do it?”, he replied simply: “It is my life.”

It is the longer term that is worrying Tomas and others concerned for this locale, who are also honey-makers. The pure air of the mountain and the fragrance of flora such as thyme and lavender give the local honey its rare perfumes – liquid gold. Destruction of that ecosystem will be of longer-lasting significance than the loss of a few tourist dinners.

By Tuesday morning, the fires have taken hold again, although we have not yet been advised to evacuate. Wind is both the precocious handmaiden and the mistress of fire, ushering it down the mountain from Palaia Perithia into the village of Loutses just above us. The smoke is rolling down towards this house, while the planes and copters thunder above, like welcome tourists. I have my go-bag beside the door: laptop, spare shirt, detective novel. But what about my library?

At the kafeneion, all is chaos. No one seems to know what is happening. Evacuees from Loutses are refugees in their own homeplace. In the atmosphere of uncertainty, the only personnel who know what is going on are the fire chiefs and the police, who display the hallmarks of what I would call ruthless but compassionate efficiency. Some people are hysterical, others simply display fear and dismay at their recent or impending homelessness, especially the old and the infirm. But the presiding factor is uncertainty in the face of the inconceivable.

Electricity has been cut off, due to the low-flying water planes, and phone coverage is intermittent. In order to maintain internet access, I drive the 40km to town, where on arrival I am told that Perithia, too, is due to be evacuated.

If the effects of wildfires on the ecosystem don’t kill tourism, overdevelopment certainly could. My family were visiting earlier this month and we dined at the fish taverna at Imerolia, a tranquil village (now evacuated) looking across the straits at nearby Albania. We watched small boats setting out for the night-fishing, and wondered at the plans afoot by a UK developer to transform all of this calm and serene landscape and seascape into a marina for mega-yachts. Someone will make a great deal of money out of the construction and the rentals, and maybe a few euros will trickle into local hands, but the damage to the marine ecosystem will be as great as any fire can achieve on the land. Diesel pollution, death to marine life of all sorts, to say nothing of the knock-on effect on the small nearby beach of Kassiopi; another blot on the seascape, for the transient pleasure of the rich.

I mentioned reading The Irish Times for news of how this all impacts on Irish holidaymakers. Because this village has been specifically mentioned in the Irish media, I am deeply touched by the number of readers who have contacted me with a “Are you okay?”, knowing that I live close to the danger zone and am in touch with some of the people involved. I am deeply grateful. And to them I would say: you might be in danger yourself, walking down Talbot Street, or merely waiting for the 46A.

Richard Pine is director of the Durrell Library of Corfu and a contributor to The Irish Times