Changes made to evacuation protocols after fatal Limassol fire

Civil Defence has made a series of changes to the way evacuations are organised and coordinated after the catastrophic fire of July 2025 in mountainous Limassol, Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said in response to a parliamentary question by MP Odysseas Michaelides, released on Sunday. He said that the Polyvios evacuation plan for Souni-Zanatzia had been updated almost three months before the fire, but the update did not include a test or exercise. After the fire, Civil Defence proceeded to update Polyvios for all communities for 2026. For Souni-Zanatzia, the update was completed on March 10, 2026, followed by meetings of Civil Defense officials with the community authority. The wildfire of July 23, 2025 claimed two lives, scorched more than 100 square kilometres of land and caused extensive damage across 15 communities in the western Limassol mountains. Although heavily criticised, the state responded with an overall budget of €63 million allocated for recovery measures following the fire. As part of the changes, Civil Defence has provided portable radios to all Communities Cluster Presidents, as well as to the Office of the Mountains Commissioner. Users were trained in the operation of the equipment, while a monthly control of communications between the points where the radios were installed and the Limassol Civil Defence headquarters was established to ensure the operational reliability of the system. At the same time, the SAFE-CY and CY-ALERT applications were put into operation to immediately inform residents in emergency incidents. Civil Defence has also started organising large evacuation exercises in communities across Cyprus. In the Limassol district, evacuation exercises have already been carried out in Limnati and Fini, while similar exercises are planned to be held in other communities of the province. The Limassol district administration (EOA) has spent €10,000 to clean and maintain works on roads in the community of Sounio-Zanatzia. Ioannou also lists specific weaknesses that emerged during the fire and which, according to the interior ministry need correction. Among other things, individual houses in the area were not included in the Polyvios plan, which made the work of the rescuers difficult, who had to confirm if there were trapped citizens.