Beijing put forest fire monitoring equipment into use Wednesday at the Shisanling plantation in Changping District, said an official with the Beijing municipal government.

Such equipment, he said, the first of its kind ever used in the Chinese capital, will also be used at Xishan Mountain, Badaling, and Songshan Mountain.

The equipment can simultaneously monitor temperature, wind direction, wind speed, humidity, rain fall precipitation, and the likelihood of forest fires. It can also transmit weather reports to forest rangers.

Beijing now has 867,000 hectares of forest, with forest coverage of 49.5 percent. The equipment was introduced by the Beijing forestry public security bureau.

(Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2005)