What’s new: Southwest China’s Guizhou Province has initiated a Level III emergency response after wildfires broke out in the mountainous region, local authorities said.
This is the third-highest level in China’s four-tier emergency response system for disasters such as forest fires, with Level I being the most severe.
Two people were killed while fighting a blaze in Guizhou’s Pu’an County on Tuesday. The fire had been contained by Wednesday afternoon, officials said.
Between Feb. 10 and 21, some 221 forest fires were reported in Guizhou, according to the province’s forest and grassland fire prevention and emergency headquarters. All have been extinguished, the authority said in a Thursday briefing.
The context: As the dry and windy weather continues, the risk of forest fires in Guizhou remains high, the fire prevention authority said. Various government departments are working intensively to assess the situation, strengthen responsibility implementation and crack down on unauthorized use of fire, it said.
Public security departments in Guizhou blamed discard cigarette butts, the burning of paper for religious rituals and the use of fire to clear farmland as causes of recent blazes. Several people have been detained for starting forest fires.
No major accidents affecting important infrastructure such as gas stations, power stations and transmission lines, oil and gas pipelines, and high-speed railways have occurred, authorities said, adding that damage caused by the fires is being assessed.
Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com)
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