Winds are forecast to pick up significantly in Rhodes from tomorrow are fire crews battle wildfires on the island.

Gusts of up 21mph are forecast for Monday, with highs of 25mph on Tuesday, potentially hampering the effort to contain the fires.

Temperatures are also expected to remain sweltering in the mid-30s.

Jet2 is dispatching five empty aircraft from UK airports to Rhodes to pick up holidaymakers, Simon Calder reports. The planes were scheduled to depart from East Midlands, Leeds Bradford, Manchester, Newcastle and Stansted airports with passengers on board to begin their holidays.

But instead those travellers will be offered refunds, while the planes bring back holidaymakers who were due to return.

A spokesperson for the Leeds-based airline said: “The situation in Rhodes continues to evolve quickly, and our absolute priority is the health, safety and well-being of customers and colleagues in the affected area.

“Our in-resort teams are working hard to comply with the guidance of local authorities, and we are continuing to bring more customer helpers and colleagues into the area to provide further assistance.

“We continue to ask customers in affected areas to follow the advice of both the local authorities, as well as staff in their hotels, who are acting under the advice of the authorities.

“We are contacting all customers in affected areas as quickly as possible by telephone so that we can support them with what they need.

“We are keeping the situation under constant review, and we will continue to make decisions in the best interests of our customers.”

Italy, which saw some of the hottest temperatures in Europe’s heatwave over the past couple of weeks, has seen the unbearable heat break in dramatic fashion in several places.

Parts of the country have been hit with intense hailstorms – not uncommon during the very hot summer months.

And on Friday morning what appears to be a small tornado struck the Milan suburb of Gessate.

Ian Murison, from London, is among the British tourists who was rescued from the beach in Rhodes by the small boats operation.

He was staying in the Kiotari area of Rhodes, on the southeast of the island near to Lindos, when the wildfires approached his hotel on Saturday.

He told Sky News he was having breakfast on the beach when the sky turned orange and dark.

“We noticed that the sea had started to become black with soot and actually people were coming out of the sea noticing ash was falling on to their heads.

“I can only describe it as almost a movie experience where everyone’s looking into the sky as it got a very strange orange colour, and everybody was just looking around going, ‘what’s going on?’”

Mr Murison said management started to evacuate his hotel but there were not enough vehicles, so he and his family started walking 5km down the road, eventually getting a lift to Gennadi beach.

“When we arrived, it was just a few hundred people – there were a couple of cafes and bars and they were serving beers and soft drinks, and everybody was just happy, thinking ‘great, we’ve got away from the fire’.

“And then over the next few hours, the amount of people in that area just increased and increased, and then as light fell, people became increasingly anxious about how they were going to get out from this.”

Mr Murison said they were told boats were on their way to collect them, triggering a rush of people to a nearby car park.

“It was literally like the end of the world,” he said.

“And the flames were now far more visible because of course it’s night-time and we couldn’t see that during the day.

“Suddenly there were leaping flames into the sky, and the sky was completely orange in the distance – so that sort of set about a level of panic.”

Mr Murison said he and his family got on to one of the small boats that were taking people out to bigger vessels to transport them north to Rhodes Town.

“There were still hundreds of people, maybe a thousand people, on the beach when we left it, and the place was littered with suitcases because they were throwing them off the boats.”

Reflecting on his ordeal, Mr Murison said: “The mood was general panic.

“By the time it gets to getting on to the boats and things like that, there’s a lot of pushing and shoving, and there’s a lot of people, a lot of children crying as well.

“So I’m glad that’s all behind us now. Hopefully we can just finish up… in a bit of a calmer mood.”

Jet2, a budget airline that flies multiple daily flights from the UK to Rhodes during the summer, told The Independent that it was working to support tourists on the ground.

“We are aware of the fast-moving situation in Rhodes, and our in-resort teams are working to comply with the guidance of local authorities”, a spokesperson said.

“The health, safety and well-being of our customers will always be our number one priority and we ask any customers in affected areas to follow the advice of the local authorities, or their hoteliers who will be acting under the advice of the authorities.”

A spokesperson for travel company Tui, which organises package holidays to Rhodes, told The Independent that they are “aware of wildfires in the south of Rhodes and are monitoring the situation closely.”

Nick Ferris and Holly Bancroft have more details below:

Many parts of central and southern Europe have been seeing temperatures of 40C+ in the past two weeks and forecasters say these conditions could persist for at least two more weeks to come.

The reason for this prolonged heatwave is actually the same as what’s causing the UK to endure a long period of wet and windy weather – the jet stream.

This flow of air has been stuck in place roughly over France since early July, with the UK falling on the low pressure side and much of continental Europe on the high pressure side.

Forecasters say there is unlikely to be any change in the stagnation of the jet stream until possibly the second half of August.

Cathryn Birch, professor of meteorology and climate at University of Leeds, said “there is a chance” the hottest temperature record of 48C in Europe can be broken “over the next week”.

“The jet stream is stuck in a stationary wavey pattern, with high pressure over southern Europe,” she says.

“This is not forecast to change before the end of the month, possibly until mid-August. Temperatures across southern Europe will remain very high until the jet stream pattern changes.”

Meteorologists predicted that temperatures in the coming days could keep climbing until they surpass Europe’s current record of 48.8C, set in Sicily in August 2021.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) told The Independent that “above normal temperatures” are expected to continue over the next week.

Many Britons are among the thousands of tourists being evacuated due to wildfires in Rhodes, with the Foreign Office updating its guidance for those planning to travel to Greece, as well as those there who are affected.

British holidaymakers described “terrifying” scenes of turmoil as the five-day fire continues to rage, with power cuts causing “chaos” and an absence of information from travel agencies.

Foreign secretary James Cleverly tweeted: “The safety of British Nationals is our top priority.”

More eye witness accounts from British tourists here:

Wildfires have spread from the mountainous centre of Greece’s Rhodes island to threaten hotels and resorts on the coast. Here’s what the evacuation effort – involving thousands of tourists and authorities from several countries – looks like on the ground.

Tourists on Rhodes have described how they were forced to walk for hours in the searing heat to try and escape the smoke.

“Currently stranded in Rhodes escaping the wildfires on foot – left everything at the hotel and fled with towels across our faces”, said Paul Kalburgi on Twitter.

“My youngest just told me he doesn’t want to die. Terrifying situation here.”

Another Twitter user, John Hughes, said he “had to walk four miles in the heat across dirt tracks in smoke and ash with a five year old. No possessions”.