Zoe Holohan was meant to hold the memories of her wedding day dearly throughout her life. However, instead, they have turned into some of the most agonizing memories she possesses.

‘The day I married Brian was flawless,’ she recounts. ‘And this makes it nearly intolerable to reflect on it now. It was the most joyous moment I had ever experienced. How can I possibly reconcile such joy with what followed?’

What followed was nothing short of a nightmare. Just two days after exchanging vows in the picturesque walled garden of a charming country manor, Zoe and Brian embarked on their honeymoon to Mati, Greece.

A sleepy seaside town on the mainland coast, Zoe had chosen Mati for its calm, idyllic beauty. But on their second day there, unknown to them, wildfires broke out in the area. There were no warnings from the authorities and no alarms were sounded, so they were completely oblivious as the fire spread rapidly.

By the afternoon the blaze had reached their villa, forcing them to flee through flames and thick smoke towards the sea in the hope that, there, they’d finally be safe. Their desperate efforts were stymied after being met by a wall of fire, yet the newlyweds thought they had finally found salvation when a passing car picked them up – only for a falling tree to cause the vehicle to be engulfed in flames.

Tragically, Brian, 46, was killed before Zoe’s eyes in what would become known as one of the deadliest wildfires Europe has ever seen.

‘It was the most unimaginably awful experience,’ says Zoe, now 52, a former marketing executive and journalist, who, seven years on, has become a burns awareness advocate. ‘Not only do I miss Brian dreadfully, I still feel guilty for choosing Mati. I’ll always live with both those terrible memories and an awful sense of “what if?”’

Zoe met Brian O’Callaghan-Westropp, a charity and catering worker, in October 2014, after connecting on a dating site. ‘He was such a handsome guy with the most beautiful twinkling blue eyes,’ she says. ‘We’d both been married before and neither of us had children.

Tragically Zoe Holohan’s husband was killed before her eyes in what would become known as one of the deadliest wildfires Europe has ever seen

‘Unlike some of my recent dates, Brian had only nice things to say about his ex-wife, which I really liked. I felt I could trust him.’

Coffee turned into lunch, which turned into dinner, all in the same cafe. ‘Brian exuded warmth and kindness; I had this overwhelming sense of being in the presence of someone good. He was funny too.’

When the staff said they were closing, they headed to a nearby bar, finally kissing at the end of the night.

‘I decided that from that day on I only ever wanted to be kissed by Brian,’ says Zoe. ‘I’d met my soulmate. We moved in together after a couple of months.’

They married four years later at Clonabreany House in County Meath. ‘I cried tears of absolute joy through my vows. Stupidly, I assumed the joy would never end.’

They headed to Greece two days later. On July 23, 2018, they spent the morning by the villa pool, giggling as they updated their Facebook profiles to ‘married’.

Later, they moved inside, where they made love. ‘The last time we would ever do so,’ says Zoe. ‘Afterwards, I fell into a deep sleep.’

She was woken an hour later by Brian urgently calling her name. She ran downstairs to find him frozen at the patio doors, the garden fence already ablaze.

The couple married at Clonabreany House in County Meath and headed to Greece for their honeymoon two days later

Zoe ran upstairs to dress, grabbing a long, white embroidered dress thinking the heavy cotton might protect her legs. They then ran to their hired car on the driveway, only to discover the villa’s electric gates had locked due to a power cut, trapping them inside. The only way out was to scale the 9ft gate.

Zoe dislocated her knee on landing. ‘I had to ignore the pain,’ she says. ‘From that moment onwards, we were running for our lives.

‘I remember turning to Brian and begging him to tell me we were going to survive. He promised we would.’

Just a few hundred metres on, they ran into another curtain of fire. They turned back but the sky had turned black and they were choking on smoke, while burning debris from trees rained down. They had no idea where they were heading.

A small group of holidaymakers suddenly appeared through the smoke, shouting that the road ahead was certain death, before vanishing again. ‘You can’t describe that level of fear,’ says Zoe.

Her dress caught alight from the burning foliage falling around them. ‘I screamed and Brian put out the flames with his bare hands. My legs were badly singed – his hands must have been burned too. But we couldn’t stop.’

Back on the road, the smoke parted just long enough to reveal a group of four or five terrified children. ‘They looked so small, so lost and we couldn’t see any adults,’ recalls Zoe.

Suddenly a car appeared, driven by an elderly man with two passengers. Brian and Zoe shoved the children into the vehicle, before realising there was no room left for them. ‘I shouted for the boot to be opened,’ says Zoe. They climbed in, curling their bodies to fit, and held the lid half-shut with their hands as the car sped off, flames chasing them.

Zoe sustained third and fourth degree burns across more than half her body, including her face, chest, arms, legs and back

‘It was like being inside an oven,’ she says. ‘My hand had melted onto the metal. The pain was unimaginable. It felt like my face was dissolving. Brian tried to smother the flames with his hands. He kept saying something, under his breath. Maybe he was praying. I couldn’t hear.’

Suddenly, they hit a burning tree, which collapsed on top of the car and into the now wide-open boot. ‘My poor darling husband got the brunt of it,’ says Zoe. ‘His clothes burst into flames and he rolled out of the boot, screaming, on to the road.

‘I tried to grab him, tried to pull him back into the boot, but he rolled out of the car too quickly and much too far from my grasp. There, right in front of me, he was engulfed in fire.

‘The last word he screamed out, a long, agonised scream of sheer terror, was: “Why?” ‘And then he was gone. He vanished before my eyes, into thick black smoke.’

Distraught and badly injured, with no idea what had happened to the rest of the passengers, Zoe decided to surrender to the heat. ‘I was in agony and it felt like it was over for me too. I believed this was my final moment. With the only breath I had left, I called out for Brian. I couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him, but I kept on calling his name from the boot of that car.’

Those desperate cries almost certainly saved Zoe. Moments later a firefighter heard her, reached into the boot and pulled her out. ‘Had he arrived seconds later, I’d have died,’ she says.

He scooped her into his arms and ran through flaming trees, shielding her face, until they reached safety.

‘Brian had been so close to making it,’ says Zoe. ‘I begged the firefighter to turn back and help me find him. He kept speaking to me in Greek; I didn’t understand but it was clear he was saying there was no way back. Deep down I must have known it was impossible; that Brian was already lost to me. But I kept begging, just in case I’d got it wrong.’

Zoe was taken to the safety of the beach and drifted into unconsciousness. She had sustained third and fourth degree burns across more than half her body, including her face, chest, arms, legs and back.

In hospital in Athens the day after the fire, Zoe somehow convinced herself she’d imagined watching Brian die. ‘I let myself conjure up a new, wonderful reality where Brian was alive and recuperating in some other ward.’

But her older brother, John, who’d recently arrived in Greece, had been taken to the morgue to identify Brian’s body. ‘When he came to tell me that night, I shut down, unable to speak. It wasn’t merely the thought of Brian lying in the mortuary, it was the manner in which he died and the fact that I was still alive. I tried instead to think of Brian as he was that last morning, splashing around in the pool, laughing and gossiping about the wedding.’

This image became Zoe’s safe place to mentally retreat to. But at night, she suffered agonising nightmares: ‘Most harrowing was the sight of my husband, reaching out, begging me to hold his hand. He would die before me, over and over.’

And then there was the physical recovery. Zoe endured skin-grafting surgeries every two to three days, focusing on her face, chest, arms, hand and legs. During that time, family and friends made sure that Zoe always had someone at her bedside.

But as if she hadn’t endured enough, three weeks after losing Brian, Zoe’s father Colm died of a heart attack. He’d been ill for some time and hadn’t been able to fly out to see her. Still in intensive care, she couldn’t attend his funeral. ‘Brian’s best friend had to break that awful news,’ says Zoe. ‘My dad was so ill and I think it was all just too much for his heart to bear.’

Meanwhile, details of the extent of the wildfire in Mati emerged; firefighters and volunteers had battled the blaze all day, throughout the night and into the next day with it only declared ‘under control’ two days later.

Flare-ups and body recovery efforts continued for weeks, with an official death toll of 104 people, making it the deadliest wildfire in Greek history.

Five weeks later, Zoe was transferred to Dublin’s St James’s Hospital, where she began to learn to walk and talk – her windpipe having been damaged – again. ‘Learning to walk was agony,’ she says. ‘But I’m stubborn. I wanted to do it for Brian, so I’d be able to walk when we eventually held a memorial service.’

Zoe was well enough to return home four months later, an experience she found crushing. ‘Photos of us seemed to mock my broken heart. The calendar still showed our wedding day, circled in red – but no entries after that. It was as if time had stopped.’

Meanwhile, her treatment continued: ‘When I started talking about not wanting to be here any more, the hospital got me into therapy really quickly, which is what saved me.’

Since then, despite all she has lost, Zoe has managed to keep her life moving forwards.

In 2021, she published the bestselling As The Smoke Clears, an unflinching memoir that charts much of that journey.

Today, she speaks in schools and burns units and is an ambassador for St James’s. Last month, she walked the Dublin Women’s Mini Marathon with 50 members of the team who treated her. Across her chest, inked over the scars, is a dragon tattoo. ‘My warrior stamp,’ she says. ‘There’s a warrior in all of us. We just don’t meet them until we have to.’

There are still triggers that take her back to that terrible day. Hearing about the wildfires currently raging in Europe is difficult. But sometimes it’s something as small as seeing a packet of her husband’s favourite biscuits in the supermarket.

‘I automatically go to put some in my trolley for Brian. And then it hits me: he’s gone. I break down on the spot.’

For a long time she blamed herself for choosing Greece for their honeymoon, but through years of therapy she says she ‘came to understand I’m not God. I didn’t cause this. It was horrific luck’.

Last month, Zoe joined Brian’s family and friends in honouring her husband on the seventh anniversary of his death. ‘In the early days, especially on my wedding anniversary on July 19, I’d just hide under the duvet. My phone was switched off. But over time I’ve learnt to see those dates differently. Now I view them as a chance to celebrate Brian’s life.’

She is now six months into a new relationship. ‘We clicked immediately,’ she says. ‘What made the difference was that he told me straight away: “You can talk about whatever you want. I’m really sorry about what you’ve been through.” He’s made me feel more comfortable in my own skin than I ever thought possible.

‘And I know that’s exactly what Brian would want for me now.’