China Accuses 4 of Causing Deadly Blaze

Two workers who lit cigarettes and two others who ran machines illegally in tinder-dry forests were charged with starting the biggest fire in modern Chinese history, a blaze that killed about 200 people in a 20-day march across the northeast before being extinguished, the Forestry Ministry said today.

Forestry Vice Minister Liu Guangyun also told reporters that Chinese satellite photos showed that recent forest fires in the Soviet Union affected areas three times as large as those involved in the Chinese fires, which ravaged 2 1/2 million acres in Heilongjiang province.

He said most of the Soviet fires north of the Heilongjiang River dividing the two countries had been put out, although a Soviet fire still posed a threat to the Inner Mongolia autonomous region of China.

Liu said the Chinese forest fire, the country’s worst since the Communist takeover in 1949, began on May 6 in five places.

In two areas, fires were sparked by brush-cutting machinery operated in violation of regulations, he said. In two other areas the fires began from the smoldering cigarettes of temporary workers. The cause of the fifth blaze was not yet known, he said.

Liu said four people were arrested for alleged work violations, but he did not say when or give details of the charges.