Rangers help keep animals, woodlands safe in Northeast China

Xu Pan can't remember how many times in recent months she has climbed the 95 steps of the 24-meter-tall watchtower that her relatives climbed before her to cast a watchful eye over the woodland her family has guarded for decades.

As rangers at the Zhanhe Forest Bureau, a subsidiary of the State-owned China Longjiang Forest Industry Group in Heilongjiang province, Xu and her husband, Wang Liuyang, work to protect woodlands and wildlife in a zone prone to forest fires.

The risk of fires becomes most pronounced during the two annual dry periods of March 15 to June 15 and Sept 15 to Nov 15. During these times, rangers must remain at their posts no matter what.

The watchtower where they work is a key location. In addition to keeping an eye out for fires, rangers are responsible for transferring information from a control room to 22 subordinate watchtowers, and vice versa.

Xu is the bureau's second female ranger; the first was her mother-in-law, Zhu Caiqin.

Zhu and her husband, Wang Xuetang, both chose to become forest rangers in 1988 and were assigned to the watchtower 9 kilometers from their home.

At the foot of the tower, a 12-square-meter room serves as a dormitory, but it can't be used in the event of a fire.

In the early days, Zhu was too nervous to speak on the radio. Bothering her even more was the fact that she couldn't correctly judge the position of distant smoke, a sign there was a fire in the thick grass.

Determined to succeed, she studied hard and read up on the forest's geography, becoming so familiar that she was able to report the coordinates of any point of smoke she saw.

In 1992, her only child, Wang Liuyang, was born. She took him to the tower with her when he was just 6 months old, as there was nobody to watch over him at home.

In 2004, Zhu was diagnosed with lupus, an autoimmune disease. Her doctor told her to focus on her nutrition and to avoid strong sunlight and becoming fatigued.

Her boss and colleagues advised her to choose a different post, perhaps one where the work would not be as tough, so treating her condition would be easier.

But she refused, saying the experience she had gained over the years would be wasted if she quit or looked for something less challenging.