EXCLUSIVE British mother breaks down in tears as she surveys the smouldering remains of her Cyprus villa after family was forced to flee deadly wildfires with seconds to spare

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

This is the gut-wrenching moment a British mother broke down in tears after inspecting the smouldering remains of her family's villa in Cyprus.
Lucy Armstrong and her husband Ben have told how they were forced to flee with their toddler as flames engulfed their villa during the raging wildfires that killed two people and destroyed swathes of homes.
The couple had been living in their dream home in the quiet village of Souni for four years.
They married last October and were settling into family life with their three-year-old son, Ethan. But this week, their entire world was turned upside down.
The blaze, which authorities believe may have been started deliberately, swept through the Limassol region with such terrifying speed that it left families scrambling to escape.
Two people were killed after being trapped in their car while trying to flee.
More than a dozen villages were evacuated, and at least 100 square kilometres of land was scorched in what has become one of Cyprus's most devastating fires in decades.
Speaking to MailOnline after going to inspect the damage to his property, Ben, 38, who moved to Cyprus four years ago, says: 'There's nothing - actually nothing.'
'The kitchen that was there, the walls, everything is completely gone. There's no recollection.
'We had fish tanks in the house, and you wouldn't even know they were even there. It's just crazy.
Describing the harrowing moment his family drove away from the fire, Ben recalls: 'It looked apocalyptic.
'The smell was horrible, and even when the sun was out, the smoke was really bad. It had this creepy orangey glow. It really was like a weird apocalyptic sunset. It was very unnerving.'
Lucy had just picked up Ethan from school when she rang her husband to ask if he'd seen the smoke. At first, the couple thought it might pass them by.
Ben said: 'The fire was initially relatively small, and we have seen quite a few fires in the neighbourhood over the past few years, and this didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.
'The issue with this fire was that the wind picked up and just took it in multiple directions.
'When she got home, we sat there and nothing happened, but the smoke started getting big and Lucy was following reports on social media.'
Worried, the couple jumped in the car and drove to a nearby viewpoint to get a clearer sense of what was happening.
'There was a viewpoint we pulled into, and we saw the fire spreading in every which way up the mountain and across. We also saw it was starting to come to Souni.
'And that's when we decided we probably need to pack and leave - and that was just to be on the safe side more than anything.
'At this time, there were no warnings, no messages, no evacuation orders - it was our own assessment.'
Now armed with knowledge of the true scale of the blaze, Ben ran back to their neighbourhood to warn others.
'They thought it wasn't that bad, but eventually they started taking it seriously', Ben says.
'Everyone started packing steadily but quickly. People from the bottom of our street were running up and shouting things in Cypriot.
'One of my friends said he couldn't believe his eyes. Everyone was panicking. No one was prepared, and we had no warning.'
To make things worse, the family had no power or water due to a leak on their road.
Ben explains: 'We were just doing all the packing in the dark. I told my son to get as many toys as he could in a bag for life that I gave him.
'I then told him to sit still and stay calm, but also made him aware that Mum and Dad were going to run around.
'Luckily, because of my profession, I had studio lights with batteries I could put on. Ethan also had his iPad light.
'He was trying to be calm and doing a good job of pretending he was okay. He was scared.'
'We also have three dogs, so we tried to fit everything that we could in our car. As a photographer and filmmaker, I had to gather all my equipment and hard drives.'
By the time they were ready to go, flames were bearing down on their home from multiple directions.
'It was coming over the hill towards us from the back and the right-hand side. In the end, it was the fire from the side that caught our house and absolutely annihilated it.
'We left the house around 8pm, and it was pretty dark. At this time, the fire had travelled all the way down to Souni.'
Ben said all he could think about was keeping his young son and his wife safe.
He says: 'My son is only three and a half. I was worried about him having smoke inhalation.
'My priority as a father and a husband was to make sure my son and wife were safe. That's all I cared about. I made sure we shut all the windows and the doors in the car.
'We didn't push the aircon too high, and even when we were getting into the car, we sprinted in as fast as we could.'
Although he did everything in his power to protect the family, Ben says Ethan was still affected to an extent.
'My son had a really bad fever in the nighttime, and he was shivering this morning', he says.
'I'm sure he has had some effect either from being scared or missing some of his meals, as he didn't want to eat. But he's fine now, thank God. But he was really bad.
'When we put him in the car, he could see the fire all around him.'
According to Ben, the already dire situation was made worse by the lack of emergency services on the ground.
He admits: 'That was one of the scariest things. We didn't see a single fire engine. They were all just at the bottom of the hills, making sure it was not coming to town.
'The support wasn't there. They were not ready. And no one warned us. If we had not made the assessment that we did and thought it was okay, we probably wouldn't have gotten all the things we managed to get.'
Ben was overcome with emotion on Thursday morning when he returned to their property, hoping for the best. But his worst fears came true - their beloved home was gone.
He says: 'It's quite a hard thing to put into words at the moment. My wife and I haven't slept. We almost feel quite numb and just really sad that we had all these memories and now there's nothing - actually nothing.
'Today we had to explain to our son what's going on. He told us he does not like fires because they burned our house down. He's smart enough to fully understand that he's not going to go back to his house anymore.
The family is now staying with Lucy's parents as they try to figure out what to do next.
Ben explains: 'We need to find out what our options are. We have never been in a situation like this before.
'We have insurance on the house, but it's not just processing that the house is home. We now have to try where we can try to get support from the government, or if there's even any support.
'We don't have a house anymore. We have to think of whether we will rebuild and figure out our options.'
Although Ben managed to save some of the items crucial to his business, Lucy was not as lucky and lost her business in the fire.
As a kids' entertainment business owner, she stored several items like bouncy castles and bubble houses in their home.
'We couldn't take it because they were all too big, so that got absolutely decimated in the fire.
'That was at least £8,000 worth of equipment completely burned. It's all plastic, so it just disappeared. I was able to get mine and put them in camera bags, but for her, we had no choice. It's unbelievable.'
As he tries to make sense of what has happened, Ben believes their home burned so quickly because of nearby brushland that hadn't been cleared.
He notes: 'Our house was the only one on our street that was completely burned. I think that's got to do with a land next to us that wasn't cleared.
'That caught on fire a lot easier, and our house burned too. There's land opposite us as well, but that was cleared.
'The local government must check these fire hazards and clear them, but they didn't clear the land next to us.'
Ben says his family are among the lucky ones for now.
'We have a place to stay for now, but not everyone has been as lucky. Some have lost their homes and have nowhere to go. It's completely life changing.'
Ben admits that he's frustrated with the news that the fires may have been set off by an arsonist.
He says: 'If someone's creating fires and it's turning into such a tragic event, that's really unfortunate.
'It's not just our houses that got burned. Our friends' houses burned down too. Some people were lucky and escaped it, but if one spark of someone throwing a match out of hate or whatever, it changes people's lives.
'We are lucky we have family, but some people don't have anything. It's really tragic what has happened to some people.'