On January 19, the bulldozer fleet led by Hou Xianglin finally completed the construction of the third phase of the fire barrier.

The project took more than half the estimated time, a full six days.

The reason for this delay is that it was finally decided that the original 30 to 40 meters wide open area of the separation zone does not seem to span enough, because the area near the Red House is already inland and by the river, and the land here is more fertile than the coastal flat land under the hillside, so the grass is more dense, and the woods and shrubs are larger than those near the coastline.

So we refer to the experience of burning the wasteland a while ago, and in the face of much denser grasses and shrubs than under the hillside, you can imagine how many snakes, insects, rats, ants, mosquitoes, and moths are hidden in it.

So at everyone's strong request, the fire barrier, which was less than 40 meters wide, was eventually widened to 60 meters, and the area close to the palm grove was 80 meters wide.

Undoubtedly, the increased amount of work was very large, so in the next four days, Hou Xianglin and his team, after receiving the support of the loader team led by Song Chen, worked in shifts for 16 hours a day, and in this way they completed the construction in a hurry.

At this point, the isolation zone has not only been widened, but even the ridge on the side of the isolation zone has been increased to one meter, and everyone is a little relieved, thinking that they can finally set fire to the outside unscrupulously.

Although Lao Wang and Lao Zhu had persuaded everyone to continue burning and reclamation at that time, everyone thought it was true, and the final resolution discussed was a discounted burning plan:

Burning and clearing the wasteland must be done, but everyone's opinion is that the work arrangement should not be so tight, as for the newly reclaimed land area, there will not be as much as a thousand acres, everyone has spoken and said, we don't want to be tired to death, and road construction is also a matter of opinion, so many people suggest the use of a shift system, road repair and burning and reclamation at the same time, this is a piece of relaxation of the way of civil and military affairs.

So Sun Lao urgently convened a meeting of the members of the General Affairs Coordination Committee to discuss it, and finally decided that the railway leading to the wharf should indeed be repaired in a hurry, and as for the work of burning and reclamation, let's arrange a shift schedule according to everyone's opinions.

Sun Lao also suggested that now that we have completed the protection of the isolation zone of the Red Mansion, then at least we can set fire to the wasteland unscrupulously, right? Isn't this just right, anyway, to build the railway, you have to open a passage in the grass, so just combine the two together, anyway, the land reclamation is the same everywhere, then build the road on the one hand, and then burn the wasteland along both sides of the railway, and kill more birds with one stone!

Obviously, there is no problem in doing this, there is no conflict between the two ends, as long as the labor rotation plan is done well, everyone can perform their duties, and as soon as this plan comes out, everyone has nothing to say, and the resolution is passed.

As a result, for nearly a month and a half from 20 January to the end of February, the construction of the railway embankment in Chengdong extended to the southeast at a speed of 12 to 30 meters per day at a distance of about 10 kilometers from the Red House to the Red Wharf, and in parallel with the advance of bulldozers and earth-loaders into the grass and bushes.

Whenever an open field 50 to 60 meters wide and about 200 meters long is shoveled out, the people of the burning team will use gasoline and "plastic bottles of gasoline" to deal with the grass and bushes on the side of the open field.

At the beginning, in order not to harm the nearby farms, only the east side of the roadbed passage was set on fire, but in the later stage of construction, the farms have been far away, and there is no restriction on the arson action of the burning team, in order to provide a safer environment for the subsequent construction of the railway, in addition to keeping the open area at a width of 60 meters, the arson has also become all-round.

As a result, wherever their railway embankment extended, there was a sea of fire.

During that time, the entire southwestern part of the island was filled with smoke and fire, day and night.

For a whole month and a half, in addition to building roads and working in vegetable gardens and farms, the main work of the people in the Red House was to open up the arson barrier and then set fires.

Gasoline and plastic bottles were used as weapons to make the fire, which can be called an ecological disaster, last from the beginning of January to the end of February.

Although the island is currently in a hot and humid summer environment on the whole, no amount of heat and humidity can stop people from setting fires again and again without regard for the rest of the madness.

By the end of February, the man-made fires had largely ended as the railroad embankment reached the beach near Red Wharf, but the wildfires on the ground had not been extinguished.

The fires that were originally set by people have now become uncontrolled wildfires in some places, and because of the gradual arrival of the dry season, many places that were already about to be extinguished are still revived.

In March, as the weather began to dry and the dry season finally arrived, the slowly spreading fire finally caused a global fire in the western part of the island.

During that time, the entire western part of the island, starting from the south and east shores of the middle and lower reaches of the Moon River, within a radius of about twenty kilometers, was full of raging wildfires.

So, at this moment, if you stand on the top floor of the Red Mansion and look in the north, east, and south directions, there are fireworks almost everywhere, especially from the south bank of the Moon River to the east of the Red Mansion, and even to the upper reaches of the distance.

There is a planned reclamation plot, Hou Xianglin and they specially opened a few isolation belts that extend into the grass, and now everyone no longer calls this kind of passage a fire isolation zone, but a fire isolation zone.

During that time, at least 200 more plastic bottles of gasoline were thrown into the artemisia grass on both sides of the fence, so that the area was filled with smoke and flames every day.

There, a palm grove that had been lush has long since disappeared, replaced by a central fire that has been burning for several days, and when the palm grove is finally set on fire, like a large torch on the grassland, the scene is as spectacular as a major Hollywood disaster movie, it burns day and night, so it also causes a fire in the surrounding grass, and the air is filled with a choking smell of smoke throughout the eastern part of the Red Mansion 24 hours a day.

If you're watching at night, it's even more spectacular---- with the entire western part of the island, lit by fires under the night sky, filled with smoke and smoke.

In the following ten days, the fire has been raging on the ground---- whether it is man-made or wildfire, some places have not been completely extinguished in these days, plus the wind direction over the entire archipelago area is unpredictable this season, especially under the southwest and northwest winds alternately, from the Moon River bank near the Red Mansion to the east about 20 kilometers, north and south about a dozen kilometers, almost all have been filtered by the fire.

When the fire is big, even on a sunny night, there are often no stars in the sky, if it weren't for the red mansion in the wilderness in front of you, close your eyes and feel it with your heart, it will definitely give people the feeling of being in a metropolis industrial area with serious smog.

However, no one seems to feel bad about it, or even extremely excited.

However, what people didn't expect was that this set of fire was indeed a bit big, causing the entire biosphere in the western part of the island to experience a catastrophe, and also allowing the people in the Red Mansion to see a thrilling horror blockbuster.

In fact, in those days, no one would stand on the top platform of the Red Mansion to enjoy the fireworks and scenery, not because when they got off work at 7 o'clock in the evening, everyone was so tired that they couldn't immediately fall to sleep, and they had no intention of enjoying the scenery outside the building, but no one dared to go to the open-air platform at all - because many insects actually climbed up to the top floor along the outer wall of the building in order to avoid the fireworks!