Fire Out of China

Spring winds come early and stay late in the Daxing'anling mountains. But residents of the area, nestled along China's northeastern border, know the breeze that refreshes can also be a formidable enemy. Over the past 20 years, there have been 880 reported forest fires in the area, most of them small and controllable.

Not this time. A blaze that broke out three weeks ago continues to rage and is the worst conflagration ever faced by the Communist government. The inferno has already killed more than 200 people and seriously injured an additional 221. Despite the valiant efforts of approximately 40,000 soldiers and thousands of civilians, the walls of flame have razed whole villages, scorched nearly 1.5 million of the Daxing'anling forest's 20 million acres and left at least 51,000 people homeless.

Little relief is in sight for the exhausted residents of the northeastern Heilongjiang province. Light rain and snow, some of it natural, some induced through cloud-seeding techniques, failed last week to quell the blaze. While the construction of firebreaks covering more than 600 miles helped, a 14-mile chain of fires farther west continued to burn out of control. Chinese officials warned that strong winds could fan the embers in smoldering areas. Conceded a gloomy forest ministry report: "The prospect is by no means optimistic."