A laboratory to study fire prevention and control in Tibet's ancient buildings, such as Potala Palace, opened in Lhasa, the regional capital, on Saturday.

The Tibet Altiplano Fire Disaster Safety Laboratory is part of the fire brigade of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Bureau of Public Security, based about 20 km from downtown Lhasa.

At the inauguration ceremony Saturday, Yang Guangming, deputy chief of the regional Bureau of Public Security, said the laboratory would play an important role in the scientific research of fires in the high plateau environment and provide technical support for innovations in fire prevention and control.

Fan Weicheng, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said, "The lab on the Tibetan Plateau offers an ideal platform for scientific workers to study fire disaster research data obtained from plain areas."

The laboratory includes a room to monitor online electrical appliances in the Potala Palace, another for burning tests and one for fire extinguishing experiments.

Staff have come from the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, and the Chinese People's Armed Police Forces Academy in Langfang, Hebei Province.

The Potala Palace, a major religious and tourism site, was built in the seventh century. It is listed as a world cultural heritage site.

(Xinhua News Agency July 5, 2009)