China’s Forest Fire Still Out of Control; Toll Over 200

Fifteen days after it started, the worst fire in China in at least four decades continued to blaze out of control Wednesday, frustrating the efforts of more than 35,000 firefighters to extinguish it.

The massive fire, located in the remote, wind-swept forests of Heilongjiang province near the Soviet border, has killed more than 200 people and caused huge economic losses.

Planes have been sent to the area to seed clouds in the hope of causing rain. Troops of the People’s Liberation Army have been rushed to the scene, and the air force has been called out to transport personnel and relief materials.

Some firemen are working with firefighting tanks, and others have been parachuted into areas that are otherwise inaccessible.

At least 51,000 people have been driven from their homes and put up in tents and other makeshift housing. Because banks are not trusted by many rural Chinese, some people have lost their savings along with their homes.

Swiftly Through Timber

The fire moves swiftly, attacking timberland and leaving blackened earth in its wake. Wednesday morning, a survey helicopter was reported to have found an area of 2,000 square kilometers (almost 800 square miles) shrouded in blue and yellow smoke.

This morning, the Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily disclosed that one section of the fire is now extending westward and is threatening to move into another Chinese province, Inner Mongolia.

Chinese officials also disclosed that Heilongjiang province has sent four epidemic prevention teams to the area “to ensure hygienic food for the firemen and pestilence prevention.” A carefully worded dispatch said that “no outbreaks of disease have been reported.”

There have been testy hints in the official Chinese press this week that some people may be giving less than their full cooperation in the firefighting effort.

The State Council issued a statement Tuesday calling for “the mobilization of all forces” to ensure an adequate effort.

The council also called on local authorities “to make proper arrangements for medical care and the livelihood of the victims.” There was no explanation of why such a statement should be necessary two weeks after the firefighting effort began.

No foreign reporters have been allowed into the fire area, which lies in a militarily sensitive sector of Manchuria near the border with the Soviet Union. All reports and photographs dealing with the fire come from the government-controlled Chinese press.

The fire is said to have broken out on May 6. What caused it is not clear, but the authorities have suggested that it may have been started by sparks from a bush-cutting machine on a tree farm.

Not long after it started, the fire, fanned by strong winds from the Siberian plain, was moving at a rate of more than six miles an hour. It destroyed all the buildings in the town of Xilinji, with a population of 20,000, and all the rail, road and telephone links to the area.

For the first few days, the official press, which has been instructed by a Communist Party propaganda official to emphasize “the bright side of things,” suggested that the fire was being subdued.

“Forest Fire Under Control,” the official New China News Agency announced 10 days ago.

Chinese accounts now acknowledge that, beginning that day, May 11, the situation got worse.

By Wednesday, news of the fire was being displayed at the top of the front page of the People’s Daily, the official organ of the Communist Party, indicating the depth of official concern about the fire and possible political fallout from the government’s inability to put it out.

Economic losses caused by the fire are only beginning to be added up. The Ministry of Forestry has calculated that China has lost more than 25 million cubic feet of timber valued at $35 million.

The fire has destroyed about $20 million worth of tractors and trucks and $50 million in housing.