Police chief Themistos Arnaoutis on Tuesday said he has “no evidence” that the wildfire which tore through the Limassol district and killed two people last month was started “maliciously”.
Addressing a joint session of the House agriculture, environment, and interior committees, he said the police are currently examining satellite data as part of efforts to determine the cause of the fire.
He added that the police have already taken 65 statements and that they have launched a “criminal investigation” regarding the fire.
In addition, he said, postmortem examinations on Demetris and Maro Philippides, the elderly couple who died in the wildfire, are expected in due course.
Fire brigade chief Nikos Longinos had said within hours of the fire breaking out that he believed it was arson, telling CyBC radio that eyewitnesses had informed the authorities that the fire was started deliberately at two separate points, 100 metres apart, near the village of Malia.
Yiannakis Yiannaki, the mukhtar of the nearby village of Arsos, said at the time 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”.
Two days later, Malia mukhtar Marilena Athini had said the fire “did not start by chance” and was keen to stress the fire broke out on the road connecting her village with Arsos, and “not in the riverbed or in an illegal fly tipping area”.
This location, she suggested, indicates more direct human intervention to start the fire.
On the same day, Longinos had said there were “crooks” in the countryside attempting to start new fires.
He added that all the information he had available to him has been handed over to the police, who have “taken charge of the matter”.
“All actions now belong to the police,” he added, before urging the public to not engage in behaviours which may cause fires.
“Everyone must be careful. They must give us information immediately. Any activities by people who use power tools or anything else should stop, and people must keep in mind that unfortunately, there are crooks out there who are trying, even after this fire, to commit malicious acts,” he said.
“This is just the information we have, and it is not just information. Fires are starting in other areas of Cyprus, and an immediate response is being coordinated to try to contain these fires that these crooks are starting.”
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