In China, estimates of the amount of coal consumed or made inaccessible by uncontrolled fires runs as high as 200 million metric tons per year, 10 percent of the country’s total coal production. Įastern India has the densest concentration of known coal fires in the world: sixty-eight of them burn within a 174-square-mile region in the Jharia Coalfield in the state of Jharkand. In addition to underground fires, there are also 93 known surface coal fires, some of them in huge coal waste piles created during the process of coal mining, such as a 100-foot-high burning fire near Birmingham, Alabama. 3 1962 Centralia fire still burns todayĪccording to a 2010 article in Discover Magazine, the United States has 112 documented underground fires, along with many more not yet known or counted.Global coal fire emissions are estimated to include 40 tons of mercury going into the atmosphere annually, and three percent of the world's annual carbon dioxide emissions. Internationally, thousands of underground coal fires are burning now. Because they burn underground, coal seam fires are extremely difficult and costly to extinguish, and are unlikely to be suppressed by rainfall. Whether started by humans or by natural causes, coal seam fires continue to burn for decades or even centuries until either the fuel source is exhausted a permanent groundwater table is encountered the depth of the burn becomes greater than the ground’s capacity to subside and vent or humans intervene. ![]() Ĭoal fire hazards to health and the environment include toxic fumes, reigniting fires, and sinkholes. ![]() They sometimes start because of a nearby blaze, but they can also ignite through spontaneous combustion: certain minerals in the coal, such as sulfides and pyrites, can oxidize and in the process generate enough heat to cause a fire. Coal fires occur in operating coal mines, abandoned coal mines and waste coal piles.
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