Forestry authorities said yesterday 5,343 fires that damaged 84,000 hectares of woods were reported between April and June, and that local governments should do more to prevent and control forest fires in the autumn, when they are most likely to occur.

"The third quarter of the year is a key time for fires caused by lightning in northeast China and Inner Mongolia, two of China's largest forest zones with dry weather and increasingly windy days," said Cao Qingyao, spokesperson for the State Forestry Administration (SFA).

Cao said that, although the area affected by forest fires was 83 percent lower than the same period in the previous three years, numbers of fires and casualties had doubled, with 41 people killed and 15 injured.

He said controlling forest fires "will become more difficult in autumn with people flocking to forests to harvest crops and herbs for medicine."

"Anything that can cause fires must be carefully monitored, while the authorities must get ready to mitigate any damage caused," he added.

Parts of forests destroyed in the last quarter included woodland in north China's Shanxi Province and the southwestern province of Sichuan, he quoted the SFA's latest reports as saying.

About one-third of the fires were caused by people working in the forests; other causes included lightning and fires spreading from neighboring countries.

So far, probes into 66 percent of the fires have been completed, with 3,400 people investigated. About 640 people have been sentenced for arson or related crimes, said Cao.

In the first half of this year the SFA also looked into more than 200,000 cases of illegal logging, including excessive and unlicensed felling, the reclamation of woodland for farming and occupying forests for new projects.

Forestry authorities have imposed fines of more than 136 million yuan (US$16.8 million) in such cases.

(China Daily July 25, 2005)