The first response to the fires that devastated mountainous Limassol and Paphos on 23 July 2025 took 15 minutes, not six as officials publicly claimed in the days after the disaster, according to a joint parliamentary committee report being tabled in plenary tomorrow.
The report, produced by the parliamentary Committees on Interior, Agriculture and Environment, runs to 46 pages and 11,097 words. It records two deaths, the burning of 1.3% of the island’s total area and the destruction of more than 120 square kilometres of land in the Malia fire alone, with 96.11% of it private land and 14,250 donums of agricultural land lost. The Paphos fire started from a rubbish dump.
Fifty minutes from detection to first aerial drop
Fire Service records cited in the report show that a call reporting a grass fire on the Malia-Arsos road was received via a private phone at 13:28. The order to activate aerial assets was given at 13:49 and the first aerial drop was made at 14:18, fifty minutes after the fire was detected. Initial firefighting was carried out using basic equipment from a neighbouring community. The mobile phone early warning system that would have alerted citizens was not in place, as tenders for the project had been cancelled in May 2024 following legal challenges.
The road where two people died
The Police Chief declined to provide an explanation for why the road on which two citizens lost their lives was not closed during the fires, referring the question to an internal police investigation. The former Justice Minister confirmed to the committees that road closures were the responsibility of the Cyprus Police.
The Agriculture Minister
The Agriculture Minister systematically avoided answering questions put repeatedly by committee members and other MPs, attempting instead to shift responsibility for coordination to the Chief of the Fire Service, according to the report. She refused to explain why the Director General of the Agriculture Ministry, who had been designated as the responsible coordinator for fire prevention and suppression, was in Australia representing the government during the crisis. Despite repeated attempts by the Environment Commissioner to meet with her about the fires, she never agreed to do so, referring the Commissioner instead to ministry officials. The committees found that the Agriculture Minister had not adequately fulfilled her duties, and that the Director General had adopted a similar stance before the committees.
Evacuation failures
The evacuation plan in force had critical gaps: it did not require mandatory notification of Civil Defence for campsites, isolated residences or livestock premises. Communication and coordination with Civil Defence were found to be deficient, causing delays in guidance to communities and fragmented evacuation procedures. The Civil Defence commander failed to provide adequate explanations for serious deficiencies in some community evacuations. Community council presidents were left to act autonomously, with some telling the committees that following the instructions they had been given would have directed residents into the affected areas.
Deficiencies were also identified in the evacuation of the Lofou camp, exposing weaknesses in plan Polyvios. The Interior Minister acknowledged that training of community leaders had taken place between January and May 2025 but conceded that weaknesses in emergency evacuation procedures had been exposed.
Public statements versus committee evidence
The committees found significant contradictions between public statements made by ministers and officials in the days immediately after the fires and the positions they adopted before the committees, with some officials refusing altogether to answer questions put to them repeatedly. The former Justice Minister acknowledged that weaknesses and failures had occurred in the implementation of emergency plans Ikaros II and Pyrsos. Documents and evidence submitted to the committees indicated serious shortages in equipment, firefighting resources and personnel, which the report says were not reflected in the government’s public assurances about operational readiness.
Personnel on the ground
The committees noted exceptional dedication from personnel of the Civil Defence, Fire Service, Forestry Department, Cyprus Police, National Guard and volunteers, whose contribution in the field was decisive. However, the report notes that their efforts were not supported by an institutionalised central coordination mechanism.
What the committees are calling for
The committees call for a unified civil protection mechanism with clearly defined responsibilities and interoperable communications systems. They recommend 24-hour operation of rural fire stations, annual readiness exercises in high-risk areas, fire detection and monitoring systems, residential mapping for evacuation purposes, water storage tanks in areas lacking infrastructure and backup energy systems for water pumps. A formal volunteer registry and a unified mobilisation protocol are also recommended.
On environmental recovery, the committees say anti-erosion measures in burned areas are urgent given forecast weather conditions, and call for a comprehensive flood prevention strategy and a monitoring mechanism for environmental restoration. They also call for the illegal rubbish dumps in rural areas to be cleared urgently, noting that the Paphos fire demonstrated they are a direct source of ignition. Compliance with EU legislation on the Paphos landfill is also required.
On compensation, the committees note that gaps remain for some categories of fire victims and call for clarification on whether the government will cover the difference between insurance payouts and the actual value of losses as assessed by the Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber. The question of unlicensed dwellings destroyed in the fires requires a fair and socially sensitive resolution.
The committees say they await the findings of the study by French agency Expertise France on civil protection restructuring, and call for a review of the proposed restructuring of the Forestry Department in light of operational readiness requirements.
Read more: