44°15′19″N 80°29′46″E / 44.25528°N 80.49611°E / 44.25528; 80.49611

The Xinjiang 61st Regiment Farm fire (Chinese: 伊犁61团场火灾) broke out at Chinese New Year on February 18, 1977. When the farm hall was showing a North Korean war movie at new year, a 12-year-old audience set off a ground spinning firecracker and ignited the mourning wreaths for Mao Zedong displaying in the hall. The wreaths should have been incinerated months ago after his funeral but the regiment felt pressure to keep them. The crowd crushed at the only exit.

694 died and 161 disabled in the fire, mostly children of veterans. The farm was a veteran families settlement established to stop China-to-Soviet migration resembling the Yi–Ta incident. The 1977 Chinese New Year drew large excited crowds as the Mao-era clamp down of new year traditions ended after Mao died in 1976. Mao's ban of new year holidays continued, however, keeping the residents in town and many attended the fatal movie-showing. It is the deadliest fire of the republic and a major Chinese disaster.^[2][3]

Regiment farms (团场) are military settlements resided by veteran families, who formed the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Frontier regiment farms (边疆农场) were created along the border after the Yi–Ta incident in 1962, which saw the escape of 60,000 Chinese to the Soviet Union culminated in a bloody put down by China.^[4][5][6] The 61st Regiment's frontier farm is in Alimali,^[1] 9 km off the border city Khorgos. The tradition of soldiers settling in the frontier stemmed from the imperial policy tuntian.^[6]

As Mao Zedong died in 1976, the 1977 Chinese New Year drew excited crowds anticipating the first post-Mao era new year.^[3] Mao had been clamping down folk traditions especially new year traditions since the 1952 Three-anti campaign and the "Destroy the Four Olds" period (1966-).^[7] The 3-day holidays^[8] of new year were cancelled in an effort to transform new year from a family occasion into a work units-led Maoist event.^[9][7] Without holidays, residents were encouraged to forgo the tradition of visiting relatives afar at new year.^[7] The crowds ended up attending the local, fatal movie-showing. Ritual firecrackers at new year were also purged for years,^[9][10] but it was made available at the local cooperative in 1977.^[3]

Crowds longed for a traditional, festive new year.^[3] Mao-era new years were overshadowed by Maoist thought reforms and the Red August terror.^[11][12] Ancestor veneration was banned, people instead worshipped portraits of Mao at new year,^[9][7] and popularized alternative new year greetings "wish you see Chairman Mao this year".^[10][13] The 1977 new year went back to normal.^[3]

Wreaths for Mao were all over China in 1976. Notice the use of flammable materials.

After Mao Zedong died in September 1976, children were mobilized to handmake 1,000 mourning wreaths for him.^[2] By folk tradition, wreaths would have been incinerated.^[b] However, the regiment felt the wreaths for Mao were political hot potatoes,^[2][3] any mishandling would be smeared as disloyaly to Mao.^[2] Their superiors told them to keep it until further instructions.^[2] The regiment eventually put the 1,000 wreaths on display in the communal hall. The wreaths pile stood 2 meters high and occupied 120 m² (1,300 sq ft), roughly one fifth of the floor.^[2]

During the 5 months from his funeral to the 1977 Chinse New Year, under Xinjiang's weather, the tree branches and paper in the wreaths dried out.^[2] A spark of fire would burn them all. The wreaths the children made for Mao ended up killing them.^[2] The wreaths that should have been disposed by incineration ended up catching an uncontrolled firecracker fire.

The festival hall was built in 1966, primarily used for Mao-era denunciation rallies against people of the Five Black Categories. It had an area of 760 square metres (8,200 sq ft), with a usable floor space of 601 square metres (6,470 sq ft) and a wooden roof, with reeds, two layers of oiled felt and three layers of asphalt.^[14]

In 1975, to welcome communist party superiors coming for a policy information talk, the hall were modified to maintain privacy and order. The hall originally had 17 large windows and seven doors. Three doors were sealed and the other three were either locked or bound with steel wire, leaving only a 1.6-metre-wide (5.2 ft) main door on the south side of the building. They also bricked the lower part of the windows, leaving only seventeen 0.6 metres (2.0 ft) by 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) windowless holes.^[3] The height of the holes made it difficult to climb during escape.^[15] The unaesthetic modification of the hall led to locals comparing it to prisons and warehouses.^[2]

Maoist new year entertainment was dominated by communist movies, loyalty dances and revolutionary operas.^[9][13] At 1977 new year, the North Korean movie Jeon-u ("Comrade"), a movie depicting the Chinese People's Volunteer Army intervention in the Korean War^[c], was scheduled to be shown outdoors. Due to temperatures around −20 to −30 °C (−4 to −22 °F), at last minute it was moved to the communal hall.^[2][3]

The regimental propaganda officer had reservations of moving indoor, fearing the children might damage the mourning wreaths for Mao Zedong displayed in the hall, but he was eventually persuaded.^[2] The wreath pile, standing 2-meters high, were pushed to the rear of the hall, occupying 120 m² (1,300 sq ft) space.^[2]

At 21:30^[a], the movie started. Firecrackers were lit by children several times inside the hall during the movie-showing. The staff made announcements twice threatening to suspend the movie-showing should there be any more firecrackers. That was the last chance to stop the accident.^[2]

At 23:15, minutes before the movie ended, at the iconic closing scene when a Chinese and a North Korean soldier hugged,^[2] several children climbed and seated on the slope of the pile of Mao Zedong's mourning wreaths. A 12-year-old boy (grade 6), Zhao Guanghui, lit a "burrowing rat" (地老鼠), a spinning top-like firecracker. It curved and spun into the wreaths, setting it on fire.^[15] The wires mounted on the roof caught fire and spread dense smoke. The burning wooden panels and asphalt started falling off the roof.^[3]

There was only one small exit after renovation. Children who brought their personal stools to watch the movie carried their stools during escape, further blocking the exits. A crowd crush happened, with a pile around 2–3 metres (6.6–9.8 ft) high, while those unable to reach it were killed by burning asphalt or falling roof tiles.^[14] Eventually, a hole was smashed in a sealed door on the northern side, allowing a few children to be pulled out.^[2]

In total 694 died and 161 became disabled.^[3] Among the 1,600 children in the regiment's farm, 597 died. The deaths were mostly members of veteran families, who formed the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. This was the deadliest fire in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China,^{[16][15][17][18][19]} deadliest fireworks fire in China,^[20] deadliest cinema fire in China,^[21] and one of the deadliest disasters in Chinese history.

The regiment farm's upper management was enjoying the long-awaited festive Chinese New Year, to which he thought his son who came to alert the accident was messing around and yelled "get the hell out".^[2]

The 8th Border Regiment, based in Huiyuan, 80 km (50 mi) from the fire site, received a phone call from the Yili Military District to go rescue. Two companies with a total of 280 soldiers arrived in the dark. The night was dark and locals were in delusion that their loved ones were trapped in the collapsed building and still alive.^[3]

The crowd cleared out a path, but the soldiers couldn't enter, as bodies were stacked nearly a meter high at the exit of the hall. Most of them were burnt to cinder, and some were stuck together like asphalt. The air was filled with a sickening stench so foul it was impossible to get close without wearing a mask. We held our shovels and pickaxes, not knowing how to begin the task at hand.

— Chen Fuyuan, (陈福元) commanding officer on site^[3]

Each soldier came equipped with a pickaxe, a shovel and two masks. As the crowd were watching, the soldiers felt it was more respectful to use bare hands digging the bodies rather than to use metal tools.^[3] Separating bodies sticking to each other was difficult in bare hands. Bodies stuck at the top of the pile were more difficult with snow frozen on them. The cleanup last four hours.^[3]

The deputy communist party secretary of the Ili Prefecture, Ma Ji, led the investigation. Ma also became the acting chief of the 61st Regiment farm.^[3] Some relatives on site were angry, and tried placing the blame on Zhou Zhenfu, the regiment farm's political commissar, unaware that Zhou had lost his daughter in the fire. Some plotted to exhume the corpse of the daughter of Zhou Zhenfu and whip it in protest. Ma Ji took a soft-line approach and convinced his superiors to not prosecute any of the protestors.^[3]

Internal Chinese propaganda initially claimed the fire was started by "class enemies" and those aligned with Soviet Revisionism.^[14] Later, the fire was largely blamed on the 12-year-old boy who set the firecracker. He escaped unscathed. Accompanied by his parents, he turned himself in. He was sentenced to laogai labor and later to juvenile detention. After release, he went to Guangdong and was never found.

The regiment farm staff in charge of the movie showing were detained for 2.5 years until the local court chose not to prosecute. They went to Hubei after release.^[2]

The disposal of the mourning wreaths of Mao Zedong and the exits renovation as contributing factors to the fire were not discussed on some media reports even many years later.^[14]

The Soviet press picked up the news instantly because the fire was within 9 km of the Kazakhstan border.^[14] During the Cultural Revolution era, Chinese media typically did not report accidents to not spoil the revolutionary spirit, as in this 1977 fire, the 1976 Tangshan earthquake and the 1970 Tonghai earthquake.^[20][22][23] The accident was not reported in China until 1995.^[2] It was featured in several firefighter journals.^[24][16][20]

Occasionally this accident was used to remind students the danger of fire.^[25]

A memorial park, named Jianyuan (鉴园) started construction in 1997 after bulldozing the remains of the hall. It was designed to be a theme park on fire safety, but was yet to be finished in 2007.^[3] The victims of the fire are buried at Sandapian, so named as this cemetery was formed by joining three pieces of land.^[3][14]

• Fires in China
• List of disasters in China by death toll
• 1994 Karamay fire, Xinjiang, 325 deaths
• List of fireworks accidents
• 1976 Tangshan earthquake
• Death of Mao Zedong