GUIYANG, Jan. 23 -- Five people were killed and one more injured while fighting a forest fire in southwest China's Guizhou Province Thursday, local authorities said.

The fire broke out near a village in the city of Fuquan Thursday morning, the city's publicity department said in a statement.

The deaths of two township government workers and three forest rangers were caused due to the sudden shift of the direction of heavy wind in the evening, it said.

The fire is still raging.