Firefighters head to vulnerable areas as grimmer season expected

Wearing dust-covered clothes, firefighters napped outside a Buddhist temple, either lying on the ground or leaning against the wall. Some of them held bottles of water.

Nobody knows how long they will be able to rest.

A raging forest fire they were battling in Xichang county, Sichuan province, which began at around 4 pm on Monday and killed 19 people who were fighting it on Tuesday, was visibly extinguished around 1:30 pm Wednesday thanks to the efforts of about 2,300 people.

Extinguishing the flames on the side of the mountain prevented the blaze from spreading and endangering the 1,100 year-old Guangfu Buddhist Temple and the Liangshan Yizu Slave Museum on the mountain.

However, like their colleagues in other parts of the country, the firefighters are seemingly destined to be busy this spring amid a grimmer forest and prairie fire control situation.

Spring is the season with the highest occurrences of forest and prairie fires in China. In the past five years, almost 70 percent of major fire disasters occurred during the season, according to a recent circular published by three central government bodies, including the Ministry of Emergency Management.

The situation this year, however, is even grimmer. Some of the country's key forested areas are expected to experience drought, and the amount of flammable materials in these areas has peaked after accumulating for dozens of years.

"The high risk of forest and prairie fires will linger. The prevention and control situation is increasingly grimmer," the ministry said in a media release.