An angry Cypriot defense minister on Monday ordered an investigation into why National Guard engineers ignored regulations and blew up discarded ammunition that ended up sparking a fast-moving brush fire.
Defense Minister Vassilis Palmas expressed “intense dissatisfaction and strong irritation” that an engineering battalion destroyed a half dozen rocket-propelled grenade projectiles at the Kalo Chorio firing range on the island’s southern coast – in the middle of the summer fire season.
Palmas said he ordered the probe to get to the bottom of why the rounds were detonated “under these conditions of 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) even as such explosions of heavy weaponry during the summer months are prohibited.”
“You understand that I will act with all the severity that is provided for under such circumstances,” Palmas told reporters.
Some 100 firefighters assisted by eight aircraft placed the fire under control after it scorched about 120 hectares (300 acres) of wild growth and prompted the precautionary evacuation of two small communities near the fire front. No homes or other property were damaged.
