Nineteen people have died while fighting a raging forest fire in south-western China.
On Tuesday, state media and officials said hundreds of reinforcements were sent to fight the blaze and help move residents out of danger.
The area threatened by the fire in Sichuan province is sparsely populated, but there was no estimate of how many people were leaving the evacuation zone.
State media said villages, a school and a chemical plant were among the places under threat.
It wasn’t clear when the deaths occurred, but an information officer in the city of Xichang was cited as saying the fire started on a farm on Monday afternoon and quickly spread to nearby mountains due to strong winds.
The officer said one of those killed was a forestry guide and the rest were firefighters.
An emergency evacuation was initiated and more than 300 professional firefighters and another 700 militiamen were sent to help.
Xinhua said another 885 firefighters from other cities in Sichuan would be sent to Xichang, along with 142 fire engines, six remote water supply systems and extensive firefighting equipment.
It said drones would be used to monitor the fire’s progress.
Along with fighting the flames and moving residents, those forces have also been sent to protect important industrial infrastructure from the blaze.
Almost exactly a year ago in the same area, a fire high in the rugged, forested mountains killed 27 firefighters and three helpers.
That was China’s worst death toll among firefighters since 2015, when an explosion at a chemical warehouse in the port of Tianjin killed 173 people, most of them firefighters and other first responders.
Like many countries, China has suffered a greater number of deadly forest fires as a result of climate change, habitat destruction and human encroachment into formerly wild areas.
Weak industrial safety standards and enforcement have also led to deadly accidents.
