GUIYANG, Feb. 21 -- A Level III emergency response was activated Wednesday in southwest China's Guizhou Province due to multiple forest fires that broke out recently, local authorities said.

On Tuesday, two people were killed while fighting a forest fire in Guizhou's Pu'an County. The fire had been contained as of 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

From Feb. 10 to 19, 148 forest fires were reported in Guizhou, according to a notice issued by the Guizhou forest and grassland fire prevention and emergency headquarters.

Currently, the province faces a serious situation of forest fire prevention, and efforts should be made to extinguish the fires to safeguard people's lives and property, officials said in a teleconference on forest fire prevention work held Tuesday in Guizhou.