More than 1,000 firefighters battled all night to
extinguish a forest fire that was moving in on Kunming, the capital
city of southwest China's Yunnan Province.
By yesterday morning they'd put out almost all the flames that
had raged for nine days.
"The fire has stopped spreading and the threat to nearby
villages has been alleviated," the State Forestry Administration
(SFA) said in yesterday's news release.
The wind was light at night and low-lying cloud created the
right conditions for artificial rain making, SFA said.
Ten attempts to create rain produced a steady drizzle over areas
of the fire and firefighters extinguished flames that
reappeared.
The inferno destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest. At least
800 residents of Tuanjie Town, about 20 kilometers from downtown
Kunming, were evacuated.
Three villagers were injured and there were no deaths, an
official with the provincial forestry administration said on
Wednesday.
The fire broke out last Wednesday in Wenquan Town of Anning
City, which is about 28 kilometers from Kunming.
(China Daily April 7, 2006)