Fire brigade chief Nikos Longinos on Friday said he insists that the wildfire which tore through the Limassol district and killed two people last month may have been arson.

Addressing a joint session of the House agriculture, environment, and interior committees held in light of the fire, he made reference to the findings of the investigation carried out by the United States’ Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and said that while he does not dispute the findings, they do not preclude the possibility of arson.

He pointed out the abandoned cigarette butts highlighted by the ATF, and asked the House, “is there not a possibility that someone left them lit there?”

“How can so many cigarette butts be found within a few metres of one another? Is there a possibility that someone dropped 20 cigarettes there and left? In that case, could it be considered to be arson?” he asked.

He then said that he had also photographed the area at which the fire had broken out as early as July 24, the day after the fire had broken out, and that he had also found cigarette butts in the area.

He highlighted the fact that any person who discards a lit match, a cigarette, or any other object which causes a fire in the countryside is guilty of an offence which carries with it a prison sentence of up to 10 years or a fine of up to €75,000, or both.

Then, he said he had not spoken to the ATF teams, but that the fire brigade is conducting its own investigation into the matter.

“I do not dispute the findings, but I insist it may be arson,” he said.

Earlier in the day, police chief Themistos Arnaoutis had said there was no evidence that the fire had been started maliciously.

He said a total of “13 pieces of information have been investigated”, and that investigations into the fire are ongoing, but did not provide any further details, other than to add that the two cigarette butts recovered by the ATF team had been handed over to the police “for scientific examinations”.

At the previous joint session, held earlier this month, Arnaoutis had said that the police had launched a criminal investigation regarding the fire.

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 the days prior, 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.