AMMAN: Firefighters on Sunday were fighting a fire in a forest in northern Jordan after a 24-hour effort against the blaze that was alleged to have been deliberately started.

The fire began at around 3:00pm on Saturday at a forest in Jerash governorate in the north, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Mohammad Shorman, head of the agriculture ministry’s forestry department, said the blaze had destroyed several trees and spread over around 50,000 square metres of the forest.

He said the location of the fire was difficult to reach with the necessary firefighting equipment and that firefighters had to attempt to bring it under control manually.

The cause of Saturday’s blaze was not yet known, but officials have said earlier fires appeared to have been deliberately set by unknown people who were trying to bypass restrictions on logging.

Minister of Environment Yaseen Khayyat announced last week that security forces had stepped up patrols in heavily wooded areas to put an end to deliberate forest fires.