A weeklong fire in the Zhalong Nature Reserve, which has threatened the critically endangered red-crowned cranes breeding there, was finally put out on Saturday night, local sources confirmed Sunday.

The fire, in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, has drawn wide concern about the fate of the red-crowned crane, more than 200 of which find seasonal homes in the area's reed groves.

No human casualties were reported. The damage is still being assessed, according to the provincial?Forestry Department's Firefighting Office.

The Zhalong Nature Reserve's 210,000 hectares span Du'erbote and Lindian counties, where the blaze broke out at about 1:00 PM on March 20. It spread quickly to Qiqihar and over the next three days destroyed some 21,000 hectares of wetlands.

The fire was almost brought under control on Wednesday, but it reignited on Friday, leaving a vast blackened area on the reserve before finally being extinguished on Saturday.

Authorities believe the blaze was started by farmers illegally burning reeds on the wetlands.

Although the practice was banned two years ago, for centuries the local farmers have burned withered reeds in spring to encourage better growth in later months. The plant is considered a high-quality material for papermaking and handicrafts.

"Similar fires kindled by reed burning have occurred frequently in recent years," said a local resident, who declined to be named.

A number of upstream dam projects that have cut off water to the reserve have also been blamed for making the area susceptible to fires.

"I'm afraid we might not see the migrant red-crested cranes fly over to Zhalong this spring," said reserve employee Ma Lin.

Every spring the rare species migrates from Qinghai Lake, in northwest China's Qinghai Province, to Zhalong. The local reed-growing wetland provides an ideal habitat for the birds, which normally stay at the reserve until autumn.

However, the wetland reeds have been decreasing because of a serious lack of water.

The reserve's two major water sources are the Shuangyang and Wuyu'er rivers, both tributaries of the Nenjiang, a major river in northeast China. The construction of a series of reservoirs on the upper reaches of the rivers has reduced the flow of water.

The minimum water needed for the reserve to qualify as a wetland is about 100 million cubic meters each year. Some?5 million yuan (US$609,000) is needed to divert water from other areas into the reserve.

"People are grabbing food from the red-crowned cranes," said Ma Jianzhang of the Northeast Forestry University.

Set up in 1979, the area was designed as a state-level nature reserve for the red-crowned crane.

The red-crowned crane is a critically endangered species under Class I protection in China and listed on the CITES Appendix 1. The total population of the birds in the wild is estimated at 1,500, and approximately 220 normally summer in Zhalong.

(China Daily March 28, 2005)