Forest fire disasters hit record low

China had 616 forest fire disasters last year, a record low since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, an official with the Ministry of Emergency Management said.

"It was the first time that the country saw the number of forest fire disasters in a year dropped below 1,000 since then," said Peng Xiaoguo, deputy head of the ministry's forest fire control bureau, at a news conference on Tuesday.

No serious forest fire has happened in 2021, he said, adding that the total size of burned areas and casualties had also declined from 2020.

In China, serious forest fire disasters refer to those that claim 10 to 30 lives, seriously injure 50 to 100 people or cause direct economic losses of 50 million yuan ($7.9 million) to 100 million yuan.

In the first quarter of this year, 103 forest fire disasters and nine prairie fire disasters happened across the country, he noted. Both figures are down from last year.

Zhou Hongsheng, deputy head of fire control at the National Forest and Grassland Administration, said the decline in disasters can be attributed to a series of campaigns jointly rolled out by the administration, the ministry and other central government bodies last year.

In a campaign targeting wildfires, for example, 157,900 locations with fire risks were identified, he said. A total of 9,242 people were given administrative penalties for related violations.

He said another main focus in forest fire management in 2021 was to rule out safety hazards in the country's power lines in forest and prairie areas.

By the first quarter this year, with 1.5 billion yuan ($235 million) of investment, authorities across the country have combed power lines stretching 210,000 kilometers, Zhou said.

He said rectification has been completed in nearly half the 74,000 km of lines that were found with hazards.