Firefighters across the capital are on high alert as hundreds of thousands of Beijingers head to graveyards to burn "gifts" for their dead relatives.

At least 28 blazes caused by residents setting light to paper money and offerings to mark Qingming, or Tomb-sweeping Festival, were reported on Saturday in six districts, including Chaoyang and Haidian. Xia Chunlei, a press officer for the municipal fire prevention bureau, predicted this year's celebrations will be the most hectic ever for emergency teams.

"The busiest days are from March 26 to April 10, when an estimated 3 million or so people will go to sweep (their ancestors') tombs, 500,000 more than last year," he told METRO, adding that the tradition of burning zhiqian (paper resembling money) coupled with Beijing's driest winter for 60 years could be a recipe for disaster.

Roughly 287,000 people turned out on the first day of the festival's 16-day peak, with the busiest time expected to be between April 3 and 5.

To cope with the situation, the fire bureau is working with the bureaus for public security, civil affairs and landscape and forestry to keep close watch on 117 memorial parks across Beijing.

"About 5,000 staff members, including firefighters and volunteers, will be allocated at memorial parks," said Liu Sen in city's funerals administration office. "Firefighting facilities have been improved and several drills have been carried out."

Fire chiefs are warning citizens to avoid smoking or burning zhiqian and incense at unspecified areas in memorial parks, offences that carry a minimum punishment of 15 days in detention.

Residents are also being urged to consider setting up free Internet memorials for loved ones, with many websites offering such services. "The greenest way is online tomb-sweeping," said Xia.

Other eco-friendly ways being tested at memorial parks include tying yellow ribbons to trees, placing folded paper cranes in bottles and replacing zhiqian with white chrysanthemum, according to media reports.

"Even with all the green choices, traditions is still hard to overcome, and some people will feel their hearts are unable to connect with loved ones unless they burn something," Xia told METRO.

With the warmer weather, growing numbers of people are planning weekend trips to mountainous areas, where most of the capital's memorial parks are. This has also raised concern about the risk of forest fires, prompting fire officials to conduct their first ever drill with forestry protection teams on March 24.

Xia explained that woodland blazes are hard to put out due to the fact they spread fast and there is often a lack of water resources. In those cases, crews use wind-powered extinguishers instead.

The head of the Fangshan district's No 1 Fire Prevention Team, who asked to be referred to only as Wang, said the force of wind-powered extinguishers can be as strong as a storm and help separate leaves and branches from the flames. However, they are far more dangerous to operate.

"We need to place the extinguisher against the direction of the fire, and the effective distance is normally less than one meter," he said.