The blaze that has ravaged a virgin fire in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region for three days are still rampant and a new fire has just been found on Saturday, the region's meteorological bureau said.

The new fire was identified about 11 AM Saturday at a forest at Yigong Town, Bomi County of Nyingchi Prefecture in southeastern Tibet. So far 150 hectares of forest have been burned, according to the latest monitoring of a satellite remote sensor.

The old fire, spotted on Thursday morning also in Bomi County, has stretched to three kilometers, two kilometers longer than that of Friday.

A team of about 1,500 fire fighters are trying to check the spread of the fire, but it is still out of control due to the continuous dry weather.

"There was no rainfall in Bomi for a succession of six days from April 27 till May 2, which casts a high risk of forest fire and rocks slide," said Yu Zhongshui, engineer with Tibet Meteorological Station.

Bomi is still unlikely to see any rainfall before Sunday and the dry weather is unfavorable for operating artificial rainfall, Yu said.

"But wind will lessen after Sunday and the condition may be conducive to performing artificial rainfall operation," Yu predicted.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation and no casualties have been reported.

Tibet experienced its third warm winter in the last seven years, with a temperature rise of nine degrees Celsius on the average in some areas.

Meanwhile, most parts of Tibet reported a 50-percent decline in rainfall, which measured less than one mm at 17 of the region's 32 meteorological stations between early December and the end of February.

On April 20, a fire broke out in a forest also in the Nyingchi Prefecture, which was extinguished two days later by more than 6,000 fire-fighters in aid of an artificial rainfall.

(Xinhua News Agency May 6, 2007)