It took nearly 2,000 people two days, but two severe forest
fires were extinguished yesterday in Heihe, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.
A fire started around 9:00 am on Monday in the Daling Forestry
Farm, located in the Aihui District of Heihe, a border city nearly
600 kilometres northwest of provincial capital Harbin.
In the afternoon, another fire broke out in Baiyun Forestry Farm
in Nenjiang County of the city.
The fires were brought under control, and no obvious fire could
be spotted around 4?PM yesterday, according to a worker in the
provincial Forest Fire Prevention and Control Centre.
"Clean-up work is beginning, and people are still at the scene
in case the fire re-ignites," the worker said.
More than 1,400 people were fighting the blaze at Daling, which
at one point on Monday night spread to about 25 square kilometres,
Xinhua News Agency reported.
A woman from the fire prevention and control centre of Aihui
District who refused to give her name confirmed the fire there was
out and added: "We usually have to guard the area for three to
seven days before we can finally withdraw all the
firefighters."
High temperatures and wind gusts of force 7-8 on Monday made the
fire spread quickly, she said, and a drought that began last autumn
caused ditches to be empty, making the dried grass in them highly
inflammable.
Local meteorological workers were also on the scene, trying to
trigger artificial rainfall, she said.
She said the firefighters had difficulty because the location
was basically inaccessible by road .
"We have two helicopters to help drop 13 firefighters each onto
the spot at a time," she said.
"And the majority of people forced their way through the dense
brush to the spot."
The cause of the fire was still unknown, she said, adding that
normally fires are intentionally set during this time of year at
that location to create an annual fire-prevention belt.
"But we did not ignite it this spring due to a long drought and
windy weather as it might have got out of control," she said.
At Baiyun, nearly 600 firefighters were helped by a heavy shower
yesterday afternoon, said Li Dongyuan, head of the farm.
Li said the fire was probably caused when local farmers burnt
grass on wasteland to create arable land, which then went out of
control.
The lack of rain since last autumn has put the northern forestry
area within Heilongjiang Province, one of the country's largest
lumber production bases, at high risk.
Thirty-one fires or fire alarms have been sounded this spring,
of which 23 have been in Heihe, the provincial Forest Fire
Prevention and Control Centre said.
And of the 23, only two evolved into actual fire disasters.
(China Daily May 10, 2006)