How on earth did this happen to us?
As Cyprus’ largest ever recorded fire raced through villages in the Limassol district this week, destroying houses in its wake and killing two elderly people fleeing the inferno, it left a shell-shocked public asking how the devastation could be so great when the government had been so confident the island was fully prepared.
Amid a barrage of questions about why help was late coming, why offers to provide assistance were turned down, why homes were not prioritised and why fire engines reportedly drove past as the blaze reached houses, the government said it had done everything it could.
This week’s fire burned over 125 square kilometres, claimed dozens of homes in 13 villages. The full scale of the damage is yet to be assessed.
Alassa, Arsos, Kilani, Kivides, Lofou, Malia, Monagri, Omodos, Pera Pedi, Potamiou, Souni-Zanakia, St Therapon and Vasa Kilaniou all reported losses. Alassa lost just one house, but Souni lost half the village. In all 191 homes were damaged while 93 were completely destroyed.
To add insult to injury, the water supply in some villages had been cut off temporarily as part of water shortage measures, leaving fire engines incapable of doing their job. Meanwhile speed cameras were booking anyone hurrying to help fight the flames – what seemed obvious to the whole population was apparently not so evident among officials.
Not to mention the statements and press conferences announcing Cyprus was fireproof for this summer, listing increased numbers of staff, ground means and air support.
Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis boasted just in June that Cyprus had “the most complete fleet, with the biggest number of [firefighting] aircraft in the history of the state, much earlier than other years”.
So why did the authorities fail in the management of the crisis?
The answer lies partly in its lack of wildfire prevention.
Just last month, a senior European Commission official called on Cyprus to boost its involvement in wildfire prevention programmes.
Senior official at the commission’s directorate-general for European civil protection and humanitarian aid operations Zacharias Yiakoumis said Cyprus plays an active role in emergency response but lags behind in prevention.
“Despite its efforts during crises, Cyprus is not taking part in any of the 12 EU-funded wildfire prevention projects,” he said.
Even more worrying in terms of this week’s fire, an early warning system alerting people to the risk of fire near them was not activated. Why? Because Cyprus simply has no such Public Warning System in place, despite the relevant EU regulations being incorporated into Cyprus law three years ago. The directive for the 112 line for emergency calls was also not implemented.
Responding to a direct question, Civil Defence said no such system has yet been deployed.
So when the wildfires broke out on Wednesday threatening villages in the foothills north of Limassol, there was no system for warning people, informing them what roads to use and in which direction to drive for safety.
Community leaders used a very old method to warn residents – ringing church bells!
Political opposition parties have been scathing, with the two largest, Disy and Akel, demanding answers.
“The time to take responsibility is coming for those who rested, who were absent, and who failed to protect this place and its people,” Disy said in a statement.
“Recent statements and assurances of readiness proved to be but words. At the critical moment, people were abandoned to their fate. The complete absence of a plan, the lack of coordination, inertia, and the lack of understanding raise serious and unwavering questions,” it said.
“It is said that the government’s line was to save lives. With two dead and dozens injured, they obviously failed, while at the same time leaving the forests and people’s properties exposed to the fiery storm.”
As such, it published a list of questions it wished to pose to the government, including “where were those responsible?”, “what was the plan?”, “why did the government’s much-advertised plan not work?”, and “what went wrong?”, given that the government had said Cyprus had “more firefighting equipment than ever” at its disposal.
Akel leader Stefanos Stefanou, meanwhile, took a similar line, saying that the fire “pulverised the government’s statements and revealed its incompetence, which it has tried to hide under communication tricks”.
“The government cannot hide from its responsibilities. Responsibility must be identified, attributed, and taken. Society cannot stand any more nice words,” he said.
One woman from Souni said on social media said she had repeatedly called the Fire Service to report that her whole neighbourhood was on fire, with an annoyed officer eventually saying that the president of the Republic had ordered otherwise.
Fire chief Nikos Longinos has apologised for not being able to help all those in need during the wildfire.
The Fire Service had “set priorities”, he said, admitting that “we didn’t expect that it would reach these levels”.
Longinos said resources were limited and there was room for improvement.
Firefighters, he said, were at the ravine-striated area six minutes after the fire started.
“It was an unprecedented situation for Cyprus,” he reiterated.
“We did our best to save as many houses as we could and save as many lives as we could.”
All this begs the question of when Cyprus called for outside help and when it arrived. The British bases were involved in firefighting efforts virtually from the beginning.
Longinos said President Nikos Christodoulides was in constant contact with the ministers and went to see the situation for himself. “When he realised [the situation], we began to coordinate the mechanism along with other European states,” Longinos added.
Efforts to put out the fire were joined on Thursday evening by 26 firefighters from Greece, experienced in dealing with resurgences.
But the fire started on Wednesday and questions have been raised as to why help had taken so long to arrive.
Fire fighters in Omodos
Egypt had sent two firefighting helicopters to the island on Thursday afternoon after Karim Badawi, the country’s petroleum minister, had requested that they be sent during a visit he had made to the island to meet his Cypriot counterpart, Energy Minister George Papanastasiou.
Earlier, the Jordanian government had confirmed on Wednesday evening that they had “responded positively” to a request made by the Cypriot government for help in fighting the fire.
Israel sent two aircraft to the island on Thursday evening.
Christodoulides added that RescEU – the EU’s civil protection mechanism – had been activated immediately.
But there were issues. One was the distance to Cyprus, the other that other European countries have their own fire-related requirements to deal with, he explained.
Why the Republic turned down assistance from the north was baffling.
Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, Turkish Cypriot Nicosia mayor Mehmet Harmanci and Turkish Cypriot Kioneli and Yerolakkos mayor Huseyin Amcaoglu all offered to help, while Turkish Cypriot politicians visited the coordination centre and reiterated readiness “to offer assistance for our common island”.
“Now is the time for solidarity. We are ready to help … The view we saw broke our hearts,” candidate for the north’s leadership Tufan Erhurman said.
Letymbiotis confirmed that he had been informed by Greek Cypriot chief negotiator Menelaos Menelaou of offers from the north, but that the government currently has at its disposal “sufficient ground forces”.
Social media reports of Russia offering assistance have been categorically dismissed as fake news by government spokesman Letymbiotis.
Yet, Arsos, for instance, was “left without support from the state” after firefighters withdrew from the frontline on the first day of the fire, community president Yiannakis Yiannaki said, adding that the villagers themselves were left to fight the blaze.
Yiannaki was not the only community president in the area to accuse the government of negligence with regard to the fire, with Souni-Zanakia’s Nikos Vikis saying that “we asked for help but got nothing” and “we evacuated the village on our own”.
Vouni village community leader Mattheos Protopapas said “we did not receive any help from the fire brigade from the beginning”.
Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis, however, denied that the government had been negligent in its handling of the fire, saying that its deadly consequences had instead been caused by “unprecedented conditions”. Hartsiotis echoed those comments.
Before the last whisp of smoke is seen and the ash settles on the ground, eyes will turn to those responsible for the fire. The fire has already been put down to arson.
Eyewitnesses had informed the authorities that the fire was started deliberately at two separate points, 100 metres apart, near the village of Malia.
Police spokeswoman Kyriaki Lambrianidou said the police would “duly investigate the causes of the fire” and reports that it was started intentionally.
“The fact that it was arson is not an excuse, if some people consider we are using it because we couldn’t contain the fire. I clarify this, because 95 per cent of fires are malicious or due to human error,” Longinos has said.
In the catastrophic Arakapas fire in Jully 2021, which left four foreign workers dead and forced the evacuation of ten villages, a 69-year-old man was sentenced in June 2023 to eight years in jail by the Limassol criminal court. He was found guilty of starting the blaze in the countryside by burning scrub. The Arakapas fire, then deemed the worst in the country’s history, burned a total of 55 square kilometres and burned 80 homes in eight villages.
DNA identification results are still pending on the charred remains of the two people found in a burnt out car in the area of the large fire, although it is widely accepted they are an elderly couple who were trying to flee the flames.
They are believed to have been trying to flee the fire at their holiday home in Sylikou. Their car was found on the Alassa-Lania road, completely destroyed by flames. Sylikou community leader Nikos Aresti said the couple had not joined the group of residents who gathered in the village square after an evacuation order was issued by police.
Aresti raised serious concerns about the handling of the evacuation. He claimed there was no police presence in the area to guide residents or control the traffic as flames spread across nearby hills.
Furthermore, similar complaints were made about the Civil Defence being unable to meet the rapidly increasing needs.
Volunteers, local businesses and community groups immediately responded to help fire victims and frontline workers.
Supermarkets opened to support those affected, serving both as a shelter and a hub for distributing essential items. Community halls were made available to host displaced residents.
As the heatwave persists without a sign of respite and amber warnings are being issued, the forestry department has made an urgent appeal to the public to stop using tools that produce heat or sparks near forested areas, or face serious legal consequences.
Failing to comply carries a €2,000 fine, while causing a fire can lead to up to 12 years in prison, a fine of €100,000, or both.
In a matter of hours, the fire turned a productive region into a disaster zone. Horrified residents described chaos, a lack of official communication and a desperate reliance on neighbours and strangers to survive the flames.
People fought the fire with anything from buckets of tap water to vials of holy water – whatever they had at their disposal.
When the last ember dies, the struggle will have only just begun to restore what is left, find those behind the disaster and attribute responsibility where it lies.
“These flames may go out, but the pain won’t. And it must not be forgotten.” The words of one of many residents who lost their homes.