The capital's lengthy drought, which has culminated in almost 100 completely dry days, is raising the fire risk and threatening local agriculture.

"We are now at the highest grade of fire prevention and protection," Xia Chunlei, head of the fire prevention division in the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Fire Prevention, told Beijing Evening News this week.

"The city's 7,000 firefighters will be put to the test during Spring Festival if this drought continues."

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The warning came as the most severe drought to hit the capital for 40 years continued. The longest dry patch to date happened in the winter of 1970 when the capital endured 114 days without precipitation.

"There is no sign of snow falling in the coming 10 days," Sun Jisong, general engineer and chief reporter at the Beijing Meteorological Station, told METRO.

Sun said Beijing typically has a dry climate and sees less than 10 millimeters of precipitation during most winters.

However, he said the current dry patch is unusual even by Beijing's standards and is putting a strain on fire prevention mechanisms and farming in particular.

The city's fire prevention bureau has been working with companies and communities to try to clean up dry flammable materials and is especially targeting historical communities in the city center.

Combustible materials cleaned out of the northern part of Dongcheng district alone filled up 900 trucks, said Qiu Guanglu, an officer with Dongcheng's branch of the fire prevention bureau, in an interview with Beijing Evening News.

The bureau has also reportedly assigned some homework to the city's middle and primary school students, asking them to plan out an evacuation route for their families in the event of a fire.

Xia said that they are trying to raise people's awareness on fire prevention because fire can spread quickly in such dry and windy conditions.

Agriculture in the suburban areas of the capital has also been hit by the lack of rain, especially winter wheat.

"Withered wheat shoots were reported in many suburban areas," said Sun from the Beijing Meteorological Station.

"But the crops will survive if the dry conditions are eased in the coming spring."

Sun said the main reason for the drought across North China is a lack of water vapor.

"Even though South China has experienced much precipitation this winter, the water vapor over there can't be transferred to the north, which is not unusual," he told METRO.

He said there is also little chance of artificially inducing a snowfall under the current conditions.