As they flew into Rhodes on Saturday night, Maggie McManus and her family from Co Meath were greeted with images of fire as they looked out of the windows.
Maggie said she knew there was something very wrong when there were no transfers to pick them up when they landed at Rhodes airport.
"There was no going anywhere basically once we landed," she said.
Maggie and her family were forced to stay in a refuge centre last night.
"We were brought to a room which was a classroom in a school. We moved the tables and just lay down," Maggie said.
She described the conditions in the refuge centre as horrendous, especially for families with young children.
"We were not badly off considering. It was the other people who were there with small children - my heart went out to them. It was horrendous for them. There were children crying, the was no food, no formula for them," Maggie said.
She said she did not feel safe in the centre.
"People were just wandering in and out. The power was going out intermittently and during the night the water stopped running. They probably needed the water for the fires," Maggie added.
Maggie and her family took a chance by travelling to their hotel in Lindos this morning.
Róisín Ní Bhraonáin from Kinvara in Co Galway returned home from Rhodes with her family in the early hours of Sunday morning.
She said she is glad to be home.
"We saw a massive plume of smoke in the shape of a mushroom come over the mountains and because of the wind it was blowing up the island and the air was declining," Róisín said.
Róisín said their hotel in Rhodes was full of people who had been evacuated.
"Many did not have anything with them except for the clothes they were wearing and some only had swimming togs on," she added.
