About 6,750 people are fighting a forest fire in northeastern China's Heilongjiang Province that has killed one person and ravaged about 600 square kilometers of grassland and wooded area, the firefighting headquarters formed by the provincial government said Thursday afternoon.
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| About 6,750 people are fighting a forest fire in northeastern China's Heilongjiang Province that has killed one person and ravaged about 600 square kilometers of grassland and wooded area, the firefighting headquarters formed by the provincial government said Thursday afternoon. |
More than 1,200 forest police are included in the total, the rest being professional firefighters. Five large helicopters have been sent to help fight the fire.
A group of 12 forest fire specialists, headed by Sun Zhali, deputy director of the State Forestry Administration, have arrived at the firefighting headquarters.
The fire in Yinanhe Forest Farm, under the Zhanhe Forestry Bureau, was reported on Monday afternoon and has since killed one person and injured four others. It has also affected more than 20,000 local residents and ravaged 600 sq km of land, including 200 sq km of wooded area, according to the firefighting headquarters.
The cause of the fire remains unknown.
People living as far as 35 km from the fire site were being evacuated, although the exact number being forced to move was not immediately known.
The fire had spread to the Yichun Youhao Forest Farm and Shangganlin Forest Farm in Yichun City, Wang Aiwen, vice mayor of Yichun, said earlier.
Five forestry bureaus in Yichun and Heihe cities are threatened.
Wang said earlier that high temperatures and strong winds were making firefighting more difficult.
In related developments:
-- A forest fire that occurred Wednesday afternoon at a forest farm in Greater Hinggan Mountain of northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region was put out Thursday morning with no casualties reported.
-- About 2,000 people are fighting a forest fire at Zhaijiazhuang Village in Jiocheng County, northern China's Shanxi Province. The fire was reported Tuesday afternoon. Local government officials said neither the temperatures and nor the wind speeds at the site were high, and the fire danger had moderated.
