A fire that burned for 75 hours in a virgin forest in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region was finally put out on Saturday.

More than 1,500 people joined the fire-fighting operations on Saturday, including firemen, armed policemen, forestry policemen and local residents in Bomi County of Nyingchi Prefecture, said Cering, vice chairman of Tibet's regional government.

Light rainfall that started on Friday night also mitigated the fire, said a local resident who joined in the fire-fighting.

It started to drizzle in Bomi county on Friday evening, just as the fire began to escalate in the eastern side of the virgin forest in Bomi County. "The rain came just in time to quell the blaze," said Cering.

The Nyingchi meteorological bureau made artificial rain on Wednesday and Friday to help fight the fire.

The fire broke out at about 2:50 p.m. on Wednesday in a forested hill close to Zhamog Town, Bomi's county seat.

Nyingchi has had rare high temperatures over the past month. On July 17, the temperature hit 31.2 degrees Celsius in Bomi, equaling the highest ever temperature on record.

Bomi is about 680 km east of the regional capital Lhasa. It covers 16,000 square km and has a population of 31,000.

There were no reported casualties.

Investigations into the cause of the fire are underway.

(Xinhua News Agency August 20, 2006)