York street food boss Stam pledges profits to Greek wildfire victims

Chef Stam Koulouris says all the tips and profits from his Ambrosia Greek Street Food outlet in the market this week will go towards people affected by the fires in Corfu.

All of Stam’s family – his mother, father and brother – as well as boyhood friends still live in Corfu, one of three Greek islands where wildfires are now raging.

Fortunately, he says, his family do not live near to Mount Pantokratoras, where the worst of the Corfu fires are.

“Luckily for me my family lives far away from there, in Corfu city further south,” he said.

“But I feel really bad about the people that have to leave their homes.

“It’s not just Corfu – in Rhodes there have been fires for six days now. There are wildfires burning, people sleeping in sports stadiums. It is really bad.”

A forest fire on the island of Rhodes, where wildfires have been burning for days (Image: Argyris Mantikos/Eurokinissi via AP)

Stam said he was angry with the Greek government for not doing more to stop the wildfires.

They happen every year, he said – a few years ago there were even devastating fires near the Greek capital Athens.

“It is every single year – and yet nothing is done to stop the fires happening,” Stam said.

“They don’t employ more people, they don’t get more equipment, they don’t create fire breaks to try to prevent the fires.”

Stam said that all the tips and profits from Ambrosia Greek street food in Shambles market this week would be ‘donated to peoples affected from the fires in Corfu’.

According to the Press Association, thousands of tourists have now been evacuated from Rhodes – with evacuation orders now also being issued for Corfu and a third Greek island, Evia, due to wildfires.

The evacuation orders for Corfu and Evia came after a six-day blaze on Rhodes meant 19,000 people had to be removed from villages and hotels.

Evacuees in a stadium in Rhodes (Image: Argyris Mantikos/Eurokinissi via AP)

Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell told Times Radio today: "The best estimate of the number of British tourists on Rhodes is between 7,000 and 10,000. This is peak holiday season."

Asked if the Government was advising people not to travel to Rhodes, Mr Mitchell told Times Radio: "What we're telling people to do is to keep in touch with their tourist company, and that is the right advice."

A spokesperson for travel company TUI said all its outbound flights to Rhodes up to and including Friday July 28 had now been cancelled. All flights for travellers who would have been heading to hotels affected by the fires had been cancelled until Sunday July 30, the spokesperson added.

“All customers due to travel on these flights will receive full refunds,” she said.

The spokesperson said TUI’s teams in Rhodes had been ‘working tirelessly to support customers impacted by the wildfires in south-eastern parts of the island’ – although she was unable to say whether any of those customers were from York or North Yorkshire.

She said three dedicated flights had brought the first TUI customers safely back to the UK overnight.

“We have reps in all evacuation centres and we’re aiming to get more people home from the affected areas as soon as we can,” the spokesperson said.

“The safety and well-being of our customers and teams remains our top priority.”