The wildfire which broke out in the Limassol district and has thus far killed two people was arson, fire brigade chief Nikos Longinos said on Thursday.

Speaking to CyBC radio, he said eyewitnesses have informed the authorities that the fire was started deliberately at two separate points, 100 metres apart, near the village of Malia.

He also said the first fire engine arrived on the scene within six minutes of the first call to the fire brigade.

Later on Thursday, police spokeswoman Kyriaki Lambrianidou said the police will “duly investigate the causes of the fire” and reports that it was started intentionally.

Yiannakis Yiannakis, the mukhtar of nearby village Arsos, told the Cyprus News Agency that he also believed the fire had been started intentionally, pointing out that other fires had broken out near Malia in recent days, but that those fires had been “dealt with by the means available to village councils”.

The most recent such fire, he said, had broken out on Sunday.

On this matter, he said the risk of a wildfire breaking out “was probably underestimated”.

Diko leader Nicholas Papadopoulous, meanwhile, also spoke on the reports that the fire may have been started intentionally.

“We must express our anger and our concern because there seems to be information, there are eyewitness reports, which suggest that this fire was set maliciously,” he said.

He added, “this is something which should immediately concern the competent authorities, because we are talking about a fire which is perhaps the largest in the history of the Republic of Cyprus, and is in both in intensity and extent twice as large as the previous major fire we had a few years ago”.

“It is something which should particularly concern us.”