Anyone seen the trees ?

BEIJING - A Chinese headmaster, who tried to buy off colleagues by cooking dog meat for them after secretly selling off trees around the school, ended up setting fire to classrooms when the meal burst into flames, a Chinese newspaper said Friday.

Ten classrooms containing televisions, computers, printers and textbooks burned down, leaving nearly 100 children unable to go to school, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

The headmaster, in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, sold off a 1,000-tree arboretum surrounding the school on the sly, the newspaper said.

"In order to get the teachers not to tell anyone what he had done, on the afternoon of May 16, headmaster Meng got friends to obtain two dogs, which they proceeded to kill on the school grounds," the report said.

"He then told the teachers they would have dog meat to eat that afternoon," it added.

But the plan went awry when the dog being cooked burst into flames and set fire to the school's main office and then the classrooms.

The local education bureau fined the headmaster 10,000 yuan ($1,252) and suggested he be fired, the newspaper said.