Firefighters assist in border blazes

Firefighter Yu Xin from Tengchong, a border city in Yunnan province, has recently been learning to speak the Myanmar language with other firefighters on his team, and can use some simple words.

The language training is to prepare the firefighters for future missions in the neighboring country.

Tengchong, where the team is based, lies on the China-Myanmar border area where there are rolling mountains with abundant rare animal and plant resources.

Previously, when fires occurred in mountains on Myanmar’s side of the border, firefighters in China couldn’t cross to help, but waited until the fires encroached the Chinese mountains.

“It was frustrating to watch the fires growing heavier and spreading toward this side, destroying the forests, and we could do nothing in the earlier stages,” Yu said. “Without a legal procedure and a cooperation mechanism between the two sides, it was impossible for us to stop the fire outside Chinese territory.”

Yan Peng, deputy head of the forest fire control bureau with the Ministry of Emergency Management, said China’s forest and grassland resources are mostly distributed in the border and remote mountainous areas, and the threat of fire beyond the borders is very serious.

To solve the problem, the China Fire and Rescue team was launched under the ministry last November as the country’s primary emergency rescue force.

Six teams, about 1,200 people, are based in border areas with North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Myanmar to tackle forest or grassland fires encroaching from the border countries.

Yan said the ministry is actively negotiating with the neighbor countries to develop a working mechanism for forest and grassland fire prevention and control.

So far, agreements have been reached with most of the countries and cooperative missions have been conducted in some areas.