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2021 Reviewed: The worst fire in living memory

feature george the sky turned orange in ora near arakapas (andrea anastasiou)

The Arakapas fire in July destroyed an area of 55 square kilometres

By George Psyllides

While Covid has dominated the news and affected life on the planet for the past two years, another event that could have far-reaching consequences for Cyprus took place in July last year.

The massive wildfire that broke out on Saturday, July 3 only took several hours to destroy almost everything in an area spanning around 55 square kilometres and kill four people in the process, earning it the title of the worst blaze in living memory.

It was your usual July day in Cyprus. Hot, but also windy. It was another long summer that followed a dry winter. Firefighters were already dealing with two large fires in Nicosia and Limassol before the Arakapas blaze broke out.

It quickly became evident that it was a big one by the number of personnel and equipment that were being scrambled.

However, it only dawned on people that the situation was critical early in the afternoon when forestry department director Charalambos Alexandrou said it would be impossible to tackle the fire without help from outside.

As the authorities threw everything at their disposal at the fire, assistance was sought from neighbouring countries and the EU, but firefighting aircraft from Israel and Greece did not get into the action before Sunday.

Ten aircraft – helicopters and two small planes — were flying sorties on Saturday, assisting some 600 firefighters on the ground with 70 firefighting vehicles, a large number of earth-moving equipment, and water tankers.

The fire in the south-eastern foothill of Troodos was only declared under control on Monday morning after sweeping through 55 kilometres of land which included houses, businesses, pine forest, crops, across 10 communities that were left reeling.

By comparison, the previous worst fire was one in Solea in 2016 that burned around 18 square kilometres in four days.

The fire service was notified of the fire at around 2pm on Saturday. It appeared to have started at an orchard just outside the village of Arakapas, before jumping into nearby dry reed and spreading along the valley at high speed.

Fanned by strong winds, the fire raced through a largely forested area, destroying everything in its path, including homes and businesses. It travelled eight kilometres in around five hours over a perimeter of several kilometres.

In the aftermath, authorities said it was impossible to deploy forces across the entire front since the fire engulfed Arakapas in about 10 minutes, fed by the accumulation of dry vegetation.

The forestry director said the terrain in the area, a valley, the mountains, ravines, and lush vegetation, was catastrophic.

The abandonment of farmland in recent years, which used to act as a fire break, meant that the area filled with large solid sections of dry vegetation that acted as fuel.

Amid the chaos, a man reported to police that four seasonal workers he employed had gone missing.

The men, all Egyptian nationals aged 22 to 29, were trying to flee the area in a pickup.

Their bodies were found about 400 metres from the charred vehicle near the village of Odou.

It appeared they had fled the vehicle and became trapped by the flames.

Police charged a 67-year-old man in connection with the fire.

The defendant was arrested following the July 3 fire after witnesses put him at the location where the fire started.

He claimed that he went to water citrus and fruit trees in his field at 10am. He was seen leaving in his car at about the same time the fire broke out in the reed in the creek bordering his field.

The man said he went to a coffeeshop in Arakapas where he told a witness he could smell smoke and called 112 at 1.53pm.

However, police said they had a witness who saw the suspect in his field going towards his car a few minutes before seeing smoke.

Just days later, a wildfire broke out in a forested area at Pera Pedi that is connected to the Troodos forest.

Police arrested two men in the aftermath after it transpired that they had started the blaze while working with angle grinders.

This time it was caught early by firefighters but an outraged minister of agriculture said he would propose for penalties to be made stricter, including life in jail for forest arson.

Later that day, attorney-general Giorgos Savvides said he had recommended a review of legal provisions relating to the lighting of fires, arson, and other similar offences, because they were dispersed in different laws and in some cases overlapped, with oftentimes different penalties for the same acts.

Both the Arakapas fire suspect trial and the legal review are ongoing.

Hopefully nature in the area will eventually recover although many of us will no longer be around to witness that.

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