THIS is the moment a British family returned to their smouldering home in Cyprus after it was destroyed by a deadly wildfire.
Lucy, 37, and Ben Armstrong, 38, grabbed their toddler, packed a few bags and bundled their three dogs into the car as .
The Armstrongs, who tied the knot last October, have called the quaint village home for the past four years.
When they first saw smoke curling over the mountains, they didn’t panic - plenty of wildfires hit the Mediterranean island every summer.
But this time was different. It was the worst wildfire had seen in half a century.
Two people were killed in a car trying to flee the inferno, and over 70 houses were destroyed amid the 43C .
Fires broke out on Wednesday afternoon and tore through 40 square miles of land on the south of the island - mainly in Limassol District, where Souni is located.
Speaking to The Sun, Ben said: “We lost everything that day, there’s nothing left.
“We had fish tanks in the house and there was absolutely nothing left of what was in the water except melted glass on the floor.”
The couple described the stress of packing in the dark as the flames neared - made worse by the bad luck of having a power cut that day.
They told their son Ethan to stuff as many toys as he could into a bag while they raced around the house grabbing what they could.
Ben said: “Our son is quite defiant at times and he was so compliant.
“He was really scared, because he knew mummy and daddy were panicking, and we were in the dark.”
Discussing the day their lives were turned upside down, Lucy said it was “a normal day”.
She first noticed the smoke while picking up Ethan from kindergarten.
“As I was driving back on the motorway I could see smoke up the hills towards where we live,” she said.
“The smoke just kept coming, it started getting thicker, covering the sun, and the sun was turning red.”
By around 7pm the family of three decided to drive up to a viewpoint at the nearby village of Kyvides.
After all they could see “a stretch of fire and smoke”, the couple knew they had to get out fast and quickly warned their close-knit community on a WhatsApp group.
Ben said: “We didn’t realise how little time we had. I’m a filmmaker and photographer, so was upstairs in the office packing all my gear and shouting down to Lucy, ‘how’s it looking?’
“She was saying, ‘it’s glowing over the hills’. That’s when I looked out the window, and thought ‘oh my god, you can see flames now’.
Adding to the stress, the Armstrongs had been without water or electricity for 24 hours.
Ben said: “We were in the dark, so we had to make sure we were keeping an eye on our three-year-old son while running around and still trying to pack stuff.
“So I gave him a bag for life kind of thing and told him to grab as many toys as he wants.”
They left the house just before 9pm, rushing to Lucy’s parents home, which is a 15-minute drive away.
“We all stank of smoke and were sweating. Ethan’s also been quite ill from the smoke in the last couple of days.
“I’m pretty sure he’s had some sort of smoke inhalation - or it could just be from the stress of the situation,” Lucy said.
After a sleepless night, fearing they might have to evacuate again and unsure if their home had survived, Ben set out at 5am.
“I followed his location the whole way up and my heart was racing,” Lucy said, weeping as she recalled it.
“I called him as soon as he got to our home and he said, ‘Lucy, it’s gone’.
“All the other houses on our street were okay, so he had hope he was going to come up to our home and everything would be fine.”
Lucy, who runs a kids’ entertainment business, lost at least £8,000 worth of bouncy castles and bubble houses in the fire.
But what upsets her the most is that it’s the place where they have “so many memories”, including Ethan taking his first steps.
The couple said four officials from the Cypriot government showed up on Friday morning, asking them to list everything they’d lost - from white goods and TVs to couches - to claim money from the disaster relief fund.
While they said the Cypriot government has been “really organised” in terms of its reparation efforts, the couple believe there were not enough resources to tackle the wildfires.
“We didn’t see any firefighters in our village, no police, no army. No one told us to evacuate, we were telling people to evacuate,” Lucy said.
The government has particularly faced criticism by residents and community leaders over its evacuations in Souni and Lofou and Souni.
Speaking on state radio on Thursday, Cyprus’ justice minister Marios Hartsiotis said the firefighting and rescue effort had been “enormous” and that he had witnessed first-hand the wildfires’ “shifting winds and intensity”.
Lucy and Ben, who were told by “brave neighbours” that their house burnt down at around 2am in the morning, believe that it could have been saved if there had been greater assistance on the ground.
Lucy said there are other families in Souni who feel the same.
But the couple are choosing to focus on the positives, saying they’ve been deeply moved by the kindness of their community.
“You neverthink you’re going to be one of these people that are in need of handouts,” Lucy said. “But the Cypriot people are just so kind. I can’t speak highly enough of them.”
She noted that Ethan’s headteacher has given him clothes and is even buying him new shoes, while parents from the school have been keen to donate money.
Christos, the owner of their local taverna, has opened up despite having no power or water, and taken it upon himself to feed the community, Lucy said.
The family plans to eventually move back to the village of Souni and rebuild their home and their lives.
“We love the people in that area. It’s a beautiful area, it will recover,” said Lucy, adding that she hopes to organise re-planting fire-resistant trees.
For now, with the village still reeking of smoke and memories of their destroyed home still raw, they’re grateful to be living elsewhere - and to be alive.
