Tanzania mobilises to contain fire on Kilimanjaro

More than 300 people have been mobilised to tackle a blaze on the slopes of Tanzania's famous Mount Kilimanjaro, local officials said , 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.

Mount Kilimanjaro, situated in the northeast of the country, is Africa's highest summit at 5,895 metres.

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 officials said that the current blaze did not threaten any of the tourists on the mountain. Kilimanjaro is popular with both trekkers and mountain climbers.

A plane transporting local officials and leading members of the Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA) for a visit to evaluate the situation was unable to land.

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.

Police, firefighters, students from the local university and even staff from tour operators were working hard to bring the blaze under control, TANAPA said in a brief statement.

Kilimanjaro National Park is registered by UNESCO as a World Heritage site, in part because many endangered species live there.