Rain helps contain blaze

The first steady rain in months helped firefighters gain control over a forest fire yesterday that has been raging for six days in central Taiwan. The fire has ravaged 185 hectares of forest since Saturday, fueled by strong winds and the worst drought in two decades, the Forestry Bureau said. "The fire is under control, and we should be able to continue to contain it," the bureau said in a statement. A rain front began passing over the country on Wednesday and was expected to continue to drench cities, parched land and mountain ranges through the weekend. Yesterday, about 1,000 firefighters were tackling the blaze, now confined to nine hectares of forest on Lishan. Firefighters have managed to keep the blaze from spreading to a mountain creek inhabited by an endangered species of salmon and to a nearby conservation area in the Shei-Pa National Park, the bureau said. Investigators have not yet discovered the fire's cause.