Hikers attending the annual Ash Wednesday celebration in the Bull Head Mountains in Clarendon who set out to reach the mountain’s peak, as well as some who were already at the peak, were trapped for about 30 minutes on either side of a fire that blazed between them.

The fire broke out after one o’clock in the afternoon.

As fern and dried bush crackled in the blaze, hikers at the peak tried to find an alternative route to descend, and it was an adventure cut short for those at the foot of the peak.

Some patrons said every year some mischievous persons set fire to some part of the mountains. But Rupert Binger, chairman of the organising body, Northern Clarendon Rio Minho Local Forest Management, said the fires, which number about two or three every year, are never started intentionally.

“Some people roam in the forest and just throw away dem cigarette, they don’t wilfully go and light it, it’s always accidentally done,” Binger said.

He added that two other small fires there on Wednesday had been extinguished by the event monitors without help from the fire brigade.

“Last year, there wasn’t much, they had about two there last year, and the year before too, but fire units from the Frankfield Fire Station came and got it out,” Binger said.

It was impossible Wednesday for a fire unit from the Frankfield Fire Station to get to the fire through the narrow track and rugged terrain leading to the peak. However, upon assessing the fire, the firefighters decided it was under control.

People from all over Jamaica have been gathering in the Bull Head Mountains every Ash Wednesday for more than 25 years, Binger said.