A forest fire that raged for two days near a tourist resort in east China's Anhui Province was put out on Friday afternoon.

 

More than 2,000 fire fighters and soldiers battled the fire, which first broke out at 11 PM on Tuesday in bushes on a mountain close to the Tiantangzhai tourist resort.

 

The authorities thought it had been extinguished on Wednesday morning, but the fire flared up again at 11 PM the following day and spread to the forest on the 1,600-meter-high Baima Peak inside Tiantangzhai, said Zhang Zuofang, deputy head of the local rescue team.

 

The fire was put out at around 1PM on Friday, he said.

 

Two fire fighters were injured and have been taken to hospital but they are not in a serious condition, he added.

 

Tiantangzhai is a national forest park, a state-level nature reserve and a tourist resort. It is commonly known as "the last piece of virgin forest in eastern China".

 

No tourists were injured or trapped in the fire accident, said Gu Jianhua, general manager of the Tiantangzhai Tourism Development Company.

 

The fire was controlled within the Baima Peak and did not spread to the core tourist site of Tiantangzhai, the virgin forest area, which is about 10 km away, he said.

 

Business at the tourist resort will have returned to normal by tomorrow, he added.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 11, 2006)