Most of the 29 police officers who were wounded when trying to put out a forest fire in east China's Jiangxi Province are in stable condition now, according to the local hospital.

The fire, taking place on Tuesday in Xingzi County, killed one police and was brought under control by 9 am Thursday, fire fighters said.

Fire fighters identified the starting point of the fire to be near Guankou Village of Wenquan Township, about 20 kilometers away from scenic Mount Lushan, a tourist attraction.

Investigators found the fire was accidentally started by a local farmer who was burning paper as an offering to the dead.

More than 200 firefighters and armed police soldiers were mobilized to extinguish the blaze.

Tan Shouwen, a 22-year-old police soldier, was burned seriously and died in a local hospital late Tuesday night.

Facing an increasing threat of forest fires this spring, a leading forestry official warned that large forest zones in the northeast and the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region should fully prepare for the season.

Reports of forest fires in China since earlier this spring have sounded an alert for potential disasters, Lei Jiafu, deputy-director of the State Forestry Administration (SFA), said Thursday.

"The most important thing is to mitigate havoc, particularly casualties likely to be caused by devastating forest fires," Lei told a conference held Thursday in Yakeshi, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Experts fear the possibility of large seasonal fires is increasing in south China with hardly ever seen dry hot weather there. Northeast China has also had unusually dry and windy days.

"Fires are likely to break out in forests with combustible materials formed by dry bark and birch trees that contain highly flammable resins," officials said.

Fires will spread rapidly in such zones, which are usually neighbored by vast tracts of meadows, towns and villages. They can cause unthinkable damage without timely and effective control.

Over the past year, 94 percent of fires reported in forest zones in northeast China and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region were caused by human activities, according to statistics released by the SFA.

(China Daily March 12, 2004)