Mt. Aso Fire Festival 2015

Hi everybody,

I'm going on a 4 week trip to Japan, arriving on 13th of march in the evening at fukuoka. As we were looking to include some festival visiting in our itinerary we stumbled upon the Mt. Aso Fire festival where they burn some giant kanji into the fields on a mountain. ( dai himonjiyaki seems to be the "official" term for it).

My problem, however is finding out the explicit date for 2015. So far I found out it should be on the second saturday in march (this would be 14th of march 2015). However, I could not find any official looking page saying so (my skill level of the Japanese language is not that high...)

I found some similar festival including fire swinging at mt. Aso scheduled for the 21st of March and now I'm worried that the kanji burning will be a week later than expected (when we are not on kyushu anymore).

Maybe I worry too much but I would be really happy if you could help me out with this. Some schedule of the events would be highly appreciated as well!

Thanks a lot for your help!

P.s.: We plan with fukuoka as a base for kyushu so the last train would leave at about 21:30 (-ish) and it would be a shame to leave the festival right after the start. So if there is some fault in this planning feel free to point it out!

Unfortunately the fire festival is canceled this year so you won't be able to see fire kanji on the mountain.
But the "fire swinging" festival wich is called Hifuri shinji will take place at Aso shrine (not at mount Aso) on march 21st if you still want to enjoy a japanese festival during your stay in Japan.
Oh and if you wonder where i get my informations from, i work at an information center just near Aso station.
Hope i helped you

Thank you very much - this does help me indeed.
Even though I'm sad now :-(

Unfortunately, we will leave kyushu on 17th of march already and will be in kyoto on 21st of march. (The whole trip is already booked as we were quite worried about hotel capacities.)
This would mean a too large detour for the fire swinging- so no fire festival for us... *sigh*

But your answer explains why there is no explicit information available for this year. Once again: thanks a lot for your help!

Kind regards