SW China mountain fire contained
KUNMING - Firefighters on Saturday contained a mountain fire that had been raging for 3 days in Southwest China's Yunnan province.
No casualties have been reported in relation to the fire, which burned down several plantations in the outskirts of the city of Dali and blocked expressway traffic from the provincial capital of Kunming.
The fire, which was caused by a local sanitation worker who was incinerating waste, broke out around 4 pm Wednesday in Huangjia village. Some 2,670 residents living in the area were relocated out of safety concerns.
Liu Yongshu, a police officer involved in the firefighting efforts, said 2,500 firefighters and police are still working to extinguish the fire's embers and prevent it from reigniting.
He said the fire was one of the biggest to occur in the area.
The fire at one point threatened a transformer substation, an LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) station and a storage building for fireworkers. Firefighters dug a ditch to isolate the fire and prevent it from spreading to these areas.
