We waded into sea to escape inferno

FRANTIC tourists waded into the sea as they fled the wildfire inferno which has seen 19,000 people evacuated.

- LUCY THORNTON

Holidaymakers revealed they lay on their sun loungers as helicopters buzzed overhead before fleeing with their children and making arduous 10-mile treks in the searing heat.

Meanwhile, hordes of families with young children were seen on the beach in the pitch black as they waited to be loaded onto Red Cross escape vessels.

Dad-of-four Daniel Jones told how he waded neck-deep into the sea as he fled the flames and tried to get his young family on to a fishing trawler.

Daniel, 37, ran with wife Hannah, 35, and their four kids, Ethel, two, Oliver, five, Albert, seven and Rupert, nine, still wearing pyjamas.

Describing it as the “scariest moment of my life”, the PE teacher, from Exeter, Devon, said: “I don’t know how they will process this when the dust settles but what brave boys.”

GP surgery worker Kirstie Hunter, 31, and dental nurse pal Amy Lovell, 29, had spent a week on the island when the blaze neared their hotel in Kiotari.