Wind fanning flames of fatal blaze
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A Mi-26 helicopter (above) joins the battle to control a mountain fire in Jianchuan County, Yunnan Province, yesterday. Authorities have mobilized two helicopters and more than 1,000 people to fight the inferno. The fire has killed nine firemen and volunteers and left another seven people injured. |
The deadly forest fire, which killed nine fire-fighters in southwest China's Yunnan Province, had been extinguished completely by Saturday morning, said a local fire control official.
The naked flames on the Jianchuan Mountain in Yunnan's Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture had been put out on Friday evening, and 1,140 fire-fighters continued to extinguish the scattered sparks to prevent winds from reigniting the fire, said Wan Yong, deputy commander of Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Prevention Authority.
Hign winds are fanning the flames of the mountain blaze. A woman farmer blamed for triggering the fire has been detained by police, according Wang at yesterday's press conference.
Wan Yong, deputy commander of Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Prevention Authority, said earlier that firefighters had contained the fire but told Xinhua news agency later that winds had picked up making it difficult to extinguish the fire.
The blaze had turned a 135-hectare area to charcoal in a mountainous region which fire engines were unable to access, he said.
About 1,000 firefighters aided by two helicopters are fighting the fire, which has been contained in a mountain area 4 to 5 kilometers from the nearest village in Jianchuan County in the Bai Autonomous Prefecture of Dali, Xinhua said.
Li Ping, 32, has been detained. Li set fire to corn roots on her farmland at about 9am on Wednesday, but the fire got out of control when it spread to dry grass and bushes, prefecture officials said.
Firefighters brought the blaze under control on Wednesday. However, when they were cleaning up the site on Thursday afternoon, high winds caused the fire to reignite, stranding firefighters and volunteers, Xinhua said.
Nine of them were killed and seven injured. The dead were three firemen and six volunteers.
Xinhua and Shanghai Daily contributed to the story
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