CLINTON — Firefighters responded to a fire Tuesday night at a seasonal camp in Clinton, but mud complicated the job.

A passerby reported a fire at about 8 p.m. on Mutton Lane after seeing smoke and flames above the tree line.

It turned out the fire was 1,500 feet past the end of residential Holman Drive, where pavement turned into mud and horses grazed in a pasture.

The owner lives in another community and was not at the camp when the fire began, officials said.

Upon arriving at 36 Holman Drive, firefighters found the 40-by-40-foot camp in flames.

“It took us a little bit in order to get water established out to the pavement,” Lt. Anthony Barton of the Clinton Fire Department said. “The road was extremely muddy — difficult to navigate to begin with — but we had Clinton and then other mutual aid departments that assisted us with the fire.”

The Clinton Fire Department, with assistance from crews from Burnham, Canaan, Fairfield, Oakland, Skowhegan, Waterville and Winslow, was at the scene until about 11 p.m.

Barton said the fire was ruled accidental, likely caused by an electrical issue. There were no injuries, but the camp was destroyed.

A fire truck from Clinton could make it only so close to the camp, Barton said. Once the fire truck was through the gate where the horses were kept, the road became extremely muddy, causing firefighters to grow concerned the vehicle could become stuck.

As February’s frost turns into March’s mud, firefighters across Maine face a new set of challenges, Barton said.

“Obviously for us — and then everywhere in central Maine, even the other jobs that I work at — the spring of the year gives us a whole new different issue of hurdles to jump through,” Barton said.

“Sometimes we have smaller engines or forestry trucks that would go down in first, and they get further and closer to a fire. The mud season definitely makes it so that our extremely heavy apparatus isn’t able to make it any further.”

Access to water is another problem. One solution is laying out extra hoses, Barton said, or juggling water from mutual aid tanker shuttles. If a fire is too far from the pavement and water source, crews can turn to water-saving measures, including relay pumping and boosting hydrant pressures.

Mud season spotlights the importance of central Maine’s mutual aid networks, according to Barton. He said it might seem excessive to have so many trucks fighting one fire, but more help means more water.

“That’s why we have so many mutual aid departments come in as we keep that steady flow of water,” he said.