More than 300 people have been mobilised to tackle a blaze on the slopes of Tanzania’s famous Mount Kilimanjaro, local officials said Saturday, with police and local people helping firefighters.

The fire was burning near the camp Karanga site used by climbers ascending the mountain, at about 4,000 metres altitude on the south side of the  mountain.

Officials have not yet established how the fire started, but it comes exactly two years after another blaze, which raged for a week in October 2020 across 95 square kilometres.

No one was killed in that fire and on Saturday officials said that the current blaze did not threaten any of the tourists on the mountain.

The fire started on Friday evening and was spread by strong winds during the night, said regional officials. They could not yet say how much ground it covered.

The chief of the region’s police, Yahaya Mdogo, said that they were focusing on getting the fire under control and could not yet say how big it was or what impact it was having on the population.