Ready to combat major fires as summer approaches

CYPRUS state services are ready to deal with any fire hazard at any moment, Interior Minister Socrates Hasikos said on Friday as the high-risk summer season approaches.

The Republic currently owns eight fire fighting aircraft and rents another two, he said.

“We will also have help, if our own aircraft are not enough, from the British Bases, Israel and Greece, thus on the aircraft front, we’re covered.”

Although there has been a 20 per cent increase in the number of fires over the past year, damage incurred from the flames has been halved, Hasikos said.

About 65 per cent of the flames were extinguished within ten minutes and the ministry will begin a campaign to inform the public through the media on how to prevent fires.

Hasikos was speaking after an annual meeting on combating and preventing fires, held with the ministers of justice, defence and agriculture along with the fire services, police, forestry department, civil defence, district officers, the aviation unit, public works department, game fund and the union of municipalities.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.