Cyprus’
Forestry Department on Monday said that the raging wildfire in the country have
been brought “under full control”. The fires, the worst in the island nation in
decades, broke out on Saturday and razed across the Troodos mountain range, killing four Egyptian labourers.

It was only after hours of water-bombing by
Israeli and Greek aircraft that the fires were brought under control, AFP reported.

“The fire that broke out on Saturday…
came under full control today Monday, July 5, 2021 at 08:00 am (0500 GMT),” a
statement from the department read.

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The fire has been described as the worst since
the formation of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960 and has destroyed at least 50
houses and forced the evacuation of 10 villages, burning through around 55 kilometres
of forest and agricultural land.

The four Egyptian labourers that died were
trying to escape the village of Odos. They were killed by the fire after trying to escape on foot as the car they were in fell into a ravine. 

The fire was bolstered by strong winds and a heatwave that has baked the island in temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit as it bellowed a vast cloud of smoke that was visible from sea and from the other side of the Troodos mountain range.

More than 600 people from the emergency services and army were involved in tackling the blaze, along with a dozen aircraft and 70 fire trucks as well as a reconnaissance drone, the forestry department said.

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Firefighters were still deployed en masse on Monday around the badly-hit village of Arakapas, near Limassol, to tackle any potential new outbreaks, the department said.

AFP reporters had seen thick gnarled trunks of ancient olive trees reduced to smouldering stumps and grey ash replacing yellowed scrub as far as the eye could see.

A 67-year-old farmer was arrested and remanded in custody on suspicion of having unintentionally started the enormous blaze while burning stubble, a charge he denied.

Police said an eyewitness had seen him leaving Arakapas in his car at the time the fire started there. He could face charges of recklessly causing four deaths.

Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said the four Egyptians’ charred bodies had been found outside the village of Odos in Larnaca district.

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Their burnt-out vehicle was discovered at the bottom of a ravine and the four bodies were some 600 metres (yards) away.

The Egyptian government said they were farm workers from the North African country, while Nicosia vowed in a tweet to “stand by the victims’ families… offering every support”.

“It is a tragedy,” President Nicos Anastasiades said on Twitter on Sunday.

He described the fire as the worst event since 1974, when the island was divided after Turkey occupied its northern third.