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Without any negligence, the entire mechanism for extinguishing the fire was activated, which was in operational readiness, while all the aviation means at the disposal of the Sun Republic were used in the battle against the fires, said today the Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, Dr Maria Panayiotou. The Minister travelled to areas affected by the fire that broke out in Paphos at noon today for an immediate survey of the damage and contact with those affected.
"I am here today next to the residents of the affected areas, together with a team from the Department of Agriculture, a team from the Veterinary Services and the Directorate of the Forestry Department," the Minister said in her statements to journalists. "We are immediately starting to record the damage and we are standing by our fellow citizens, by our fellow citizens," she added."
She noted that she has already spoken with the Commissioner of the CMP. "All the applicant farmers, who have burnt their crops, for 2024 will be paid normally without having to travel themselves, make any applications and invoke force majeure issues."
The payments, he said, will be made automatically by the CAP and the same applies to multi-year interventions. There will not be any recovery, he added. "There we will operate without creating any problems to the farmers and there will not be any penalties. When they resume their crops, it will be measured from zero, so they will not have any problem," he said."
He added that the Ministry is also moving ahead with specific measures through the CMDP, which will meet the needs of farmers in the region. "We are proceeding to immediately record the damages that our farmers and ranchers have in order to give any compensation we are entitled to on time and immediately," she said.
Asked about this, she informed that the measures are envisaged through the plans which are in place. "Depending on their crops, declarations will be made, records will be made and they will be fully compensated," Dr Panagiotou added.
Asked to respond to the negligence, lack of coordination and flight resources, which were cited yesterday by residents of the area, the Minister explained that as soon as the fire was detected by the Forestry Department's own firefighting plane, as part of the patrols made for prevention purposes, it made two drops at the same time.
"You realize that yesterday was a very, very difficult fire," the Minister said."
The weather conditions, he continued, did not help us at all."
"We made two drops. At the same time the pilot called the other forces," she said, indicating that both she and the Directorate were monitoring the development from the Aviation Unit, due to the fact that at that moment the Egyptian aircraft had arrived.
"Immediately, without any delay, all the mechanism was activated," she stressed.
"As soon as the Chief Admiral diagnosed that the "Fire" plan should be activated, we all immediately went to the Zenon Centre according to the provisions of the plan and all the coordination took place there," she added.
Referring to the means of flight, she said there are two parallel actions.
"One is the final resolution of the problem we have with the means of flight." This government has identified the problem and is addressing the problem as a national security issue, she said.
She pointed out that after two decades - when our privately owned aircraft were purchased, in 2006 and 2009 - this government is moving for the first time to permanently resolve the problem with the purchase of privately owned aircraft through a specific plan.
He added that "the four planes that we have leased have already reached the intermediate stage since yesterday, because we diagnosed the problems that existed through all the newly established procedures, with the delays that you were aware of."
She noted, in addition, that she was in contact with her counterparts, as well as with her colleagues, the Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs.
After the contact with the Kingdom of Jordan, she recalled that the two Jordanian aircraft arrived in Cyprus since Easter Sunday. "We proceeded with other contacts, the result of which was the arrival yesterday of the two additional Egyptian helicopters along with their 17-member crew," he said, adding that "at the same time we have the plane that the Forestry Department has and the rest of the flying means that the Republic of Cyprus has."
He also said that all the flying means "that we have at our disposal, the ground forces, reinforced with an equipment of the Forestry Department 5.5 million, are in operational readiness since April."
"We are here to deal, I repeat in operational readiness, with the fires that we have in front of us. And yesterday was the same thing. We used and deployed all the forces at our disposal to deal with this very difficult fire," Dr Panagiotou added.
Asked about this, the Minister replied that all the resources of the Republic of Cyprus were in the battle against the fires. She thanked the crew of the Jordanian means, the Kingdom of Jordan, and Egypt for having provided the helicopters. He then thanked Greece and all the other countries that have responded through the RescEu mechanism. "You understand that in a time of crisis, when shoulder to shoulder shoulder side by side, together with our own forest firefighters, together with our own pilots, together with our own forestry officials, fighting in the firestorm to save our land, we cannot blame people who are fighting and struggling with us to save our land from the fires," he said.
It is in operational readiness the Jordanian and all the means we have at our disposal, he reiterated and mentioned specifically that the two Australians of the four we have leased "within a few hours went into operational readiness with the urgent procedure and already this morning at first light they made drops with our plane and were in the battle with us."
Both ground forces and air assets acted immediately and with the Civil Defence "in time we proceeded with the evacuations because our primary concern was our citizens and human lives that may have been in danger," he said.
"We used everything we had at our disposal to respond to this very difficult fire. A big thank you to our forestry officers, forest firefighters, firefighters, to the Civil Defence, to the Thera Fund, to our volunteer firefighters, to everyone who stood by us and helped us," Dr Panayiotou noted.
The Agriculture Minister reiterated that "we did what was stipulated in the Fire Plan, which stipulates that we have to go to the Coordination Centre" for policy decisions. On the operational part, he said that "there are those who are competent to do what it provides for and what they know."
"That is what the Pyros Plan provides for and that is what we did. We cannot operate outside the plans" designed by "those who know better than anyone how to deal with such problems."
(Ephys)
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