A five-and-a-half-year-old child was responsible for the latest Limassol fire, it was reported on Tuesday.

Speaking on CyBC, police spokesman Christos Andreou said the facts of the case emerged after police persisted in their interrogations at the fire’s point-zero, following its  outbreak shortly after 11am on Monday.

According to Andreou, the mother of the child had initially fabricated a story about having seen a pickup truck driving away from the site, even going so far as to offer a description.

When pressed at the Episkopi police station later, however, she confessed that her child had been playing with a lighter unbeknownst to her and had started the fire.

The blaze ended up destroying around five hectares of wild vegetation and pine trees near the villages of Souni and Zanakia, and burning a generator, a house and a car belonging to a 77-year-old man.

Five aerial means, the forestry department, the civil service, and British bases personnel needed to be mobilised to extinguish it.

The mother has been charged in writing for falsifying information to police and for negligence which led to her child being in possession of a dangerous item, Andreou said.

Episkopi police are furthering the investigation.