Xinhua General News Service

AP Photo/Xinhua, Wang Fei The scene of the blaze, Thursday.

URUMQI, China — A fire in two buildings in the northwestern city of Urumqi, which killed three firemen and injured another, was likely to be extinguished by Thursday evening, said firefighters.

Another fireman was injured and was hospitalized in stable condition, according to a spokesman for the Urumqi municipal government.

The fire was brought under control during the afternoon through the effort of hundreds of fire fighters and dozens of fire engines. However, it claimed the lives of Zhu Xiaolei, Zhang Yu and Gao Feng, who were searching for anyone who might have been trapped in the fire.

There were no reports of civilian injuries or deaths so far, according to the spokesman.

The blaze began on Wednesday evening in a 12-story retail and office building in the downtown area of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region capital, then spread to an adjacent 20-story hotel.

Firefighters abandoned efforts to contain the initial fire in Dehui International Plaza for fears the building might collapse. The lower floors, where vendor stalls were located, had been totally destroyed, but the 10th to 12th floors remained ablaze.

The fire crews instead turned their attention to the hotel, which had been evacuated, and extinguished the fire in the first seven floors.

The two building were still enveloped in dense smoke that could be smelled from more than 100 meters away on the chilly winter afternoon.

The fire began in a mop stall on the first floor of the market building at 8:20 p.m. on Wednesday, a security guard told Xinhua. He reported the fire and firemen arrived in 15 minutes.

The market had already been closed to customers at 8:00 p.m., so few people were in the building when the fire broke out, said another security guard.

Dehui Plaza housed more than 2,000 vendors selling clothes, cosmetics, toys and other items from the basement up to the fourth floor. The fifth to 12th floors were used as offices.

A vendor surnamed Tan said she rushed with her husband to the building in hopes of rescuing their goods after hearing about the fire. But they had to stand 100 meters away and helplessly watch as the blaze engulfed the market.

She said she had lost merchandise worth more than 200,000 yuan (about 27,400 U.S. dollars).

Copyright 2008 Xinhua News Agency