Cuba has set up a forest fire monitoring center in its efforts to protect the country's forests and nature habitats, the official daily Juventud Rebelde reported on Tuesday.

The new center will monitor forest fire through satellite images and allocate the forces and resources to control it, said the paper.

The newspaper quoted Colonel Manuel Lama Lopez, chief of the Cuban Ranger Department (CRD), as saying that the country registered a record number of 695 forest fires in the first five months of 2011.

Lopez stressed that awareness of the danger of forest fire is low among Cuban people, as most of the forest fires are provoked by human negligence, such as littering burning cigarettes or burning wood for various purposes.

About 20,000 hectares of forests went up in flames in Cuba last year.