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)