Blazes highlight bizarre fire fighting arrangement

LOCAL authorities have responsibility for battling any fires breaking out more than 13 kilometres from a fire station, but possess no fire-fighting equipment whatsoever.

Interior Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou yesterday identified this discrepancy as one of the aspects of the island’s fire-fighting policy to be changed in the wake of devastating forest fires in the southeastern Troodos foothills between June 13 and 16.

The Minister made clear that this odd fire-fighting arrangement did not mean forest fires more than 13 kilometres from a fire station did not get tackled — it just meant the fire brigade had to be called out every time.

The Minister was talking after the first meeting of a special government review committee set up after the devastating fires earlier this month. The fires, which the Minister yesterday described as "the worst in 100 years", burnt about 50 square kilometres of scrub and trees and threatened several villages in the area.

The review committee has been given three months in which to come up with a plan to revamp fire-fighting policy, though Christodoulou insisted yesterday that this did not mean current practice was not up to scratch. "We are ready to deal with fires and indeed we proved this in the case of the recent fire," he said.

The government had to draft National Guardsmen and ask for help from Israel and Greece before the Troodos fire was finally put out on June 16.

One aspect of the fire-battling review will be to try to agree permanent mutual assistance deals with both Israel and Greece.

Another proposal being looked at, Christodoulou said, is the introduction of tougher sentences for arson.

Though no hard evidence has been found so far, arsonists are suspected to be behind the Troodos fires. This suspicion is based on the fact that on June 13, 45 fires broke out in four different districts in the space of four hours.

As things stand, arson is punishable by a fine of £1,000 or a year’s imprisonment, or both. Christodoulou said such sentences were not enough of a deterrent.

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