Tourists Evacuated as Boat Catches Fire Near Greek Island

Dozens of tourists were safely evacuated after a wooden boat caught fire off the coast of Greece on June 29.

Footage recorded by Shaun Williams, who told Storyful he was on the boat with his family off the Greek island of Rhodes, shows smoke coming from the boat and a view of the vessel engulfed in flames after they were evacuated.

Williams told media outlets they were about a half hour into the trip when they noticed something wrong. “We were on the top deck and the crew started shouting but we could not understand,” Williams told the outlet. “We then saw the smoke.”

He explained that the crew tried to fight the fire but as the boat was made of wood, the fire grew quickly. The crew handed out life jackets and moments later the captain said they needed to get in the sea. Lifeboats came to take them to shore and everyone was accounted for, Williams told the outlet.

According to local media, the boat was almost entirely destroyed and all tourists were safely evacuated from the boat. Credit: Shaun Williams via Storyful

Video transcript

- Oh, God. I don't understand. Oh, God.

- You need to-- Oh, no.

- We have to stay down inside. We were lucky to survive that.

- You have to put into it-- I'll tell you what we have got.

- What?

- Now, we've got yet, but--

- Didn't know what was going on at first.

- At this party, no one knows what's going on, where are the jackets, everything.

- Yeah, that would wipe them out, to be honest.

- Pull up STAT?

- Pull up STAT?

- Very soon.

- Shit.

- Yeah?

- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

- One minute. Oh, yeah.

- 20 minutes ago we were on that.

- Shake off, take a look about you. What?

- So you can drop the building soon.

- Said no, no, no, said.

- Don't know.

- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

- That's what we're training, right?