PHUKET'S Thai-Chinese families turned out today to pay respects to their ancestors at the island's cemeteries, with firecrackers and picnics on the hillside at Rang Hill in Phuket City.

The Qing Ming Festival comes to a climax on Monday, when even more families will arrive to clean the area around graves, freshen up monuments with new paint, offer up symbolic cash, cars, shoes and hats and other necessities in smoke, and enjoy the company of their families and their ancestors.

Rang Hill cemetery, with scores of graves dotting the hillside, came alive today with the sound of cicadas and exploding crackers. Dozens of Phuket families carried picnic lunches, whole roast pigs, colored streamers and cleaning implements up from the road.

A couple of weeks ago, as the tidying up process at the cemetery began with controlled burning of unwanted weeds and hard-to-clear scrub, alarming reports of ''spiritual arsonists'' surfaced in the less well-informed parts of the local media.

Today, as it does at this time every year, the entire cemetery looked neat and clean. Tomorrow, an even more significant day, will bring out those families who have yet to clean and decorate the graves of their ancestors.