Forest ranger guards her woodland home against fire

In addition, one-third of the journey from home to the tower must be completed on foot.

"It is difficult to walk in the forest, especially in early spring when the snow is more than half-meter deep," Zhu said, adding that once she walked eight hours to reach the tower.

In the spring of 1996, a forest fire spread in the south of the Zhanhe Forest Bureau. The couple couldn't leave the watchtower for about 25 days as Xingfu took on the bulk of the area's communication tasks. The dried vegetables got over within days of the fire's onset, and Zhu and her husband had to eat pickles and steamed bread with salt water.

Even so, they had used up almost all of their food and drinking water much before the fire was extinguished. But they won.

"We finally defeated the fire and prevented it from causing further damage," Zhu said.

In 2004, Zhu was diagnosed with lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disease. Her doctor asked her to focus on nutrition and to avoid fatigue and strong sunlight.

Her boss and colleagues advised her to choose a different post, perhaps where the work would not be as tough and treating her disease would be easier, but she refused, saying the experience she had earned over the years would go to waste if she quit or looked for something less challenging.

Last summer, Zhu's only child, Wang Liuyang, 24, gave up his job in nearby Jilin province to return to Xingfu as a ranger at a watchtower some 30 km from his parents' workplace.

Zhu Caiqin said she took him along to the tower even when he was 6 months old as there was nobody to watch over him at home.

"During the day, we had to leave him in the dormitory alone and several times we forgot all about him due to the heavy work," she said, with a mix of emotions.

She hopes that her grown son makes an "excellent" ranger.

"I told him that the forest is our home, so we have to defend it with our lives."