One of the world's "hot spots" for underground fires in coal seams
is the Jharia coalfield in the State of Bihar, India, which I visited in
1983 (see Mining Magazine November 1983, pp 368-371). There
are at least 70 major underground fires in the coalfield, some of
which have been burning since 1916 when the first fire was reported
in Bhowrah Colliery..
In a contributed article on plans for the coalfield (Mining Magazine,
April 1984, pp349-357) the author, Dr A S Prasad, states that, by that
date "these fires have consumed about 34 million tonnes of good
quality coking coal and have caused another 46 million tonnes of
such coal to be blocked off". There were, at that time, some 13
projects under way dealing with 32 fire areas.
In a later article (Mining Magazine, March 1993, pp 123-129) the
author R.B. Mathur, MD of the Central Mine Planning and Design
Institute, Ranchi, commenting on the Institute's R&D regarding fires,
wrote: "A system using inert gas and nitrogen infusion to deal with
mine ifres has been developed and its efficacy proved. Another
system of foam application to deal with fires has also been
developed and its effectiveness demonstrated." One of the
illustrations to this article, on page 123, is of a satelite thermal
image of the Jharia coalfield, showing many heated areas of
ground due to the long-burning underground fires.
My memories of the area are of patches of haze, where smoke
seeped to surface from below the townships, and of a maze of
overhead ropeways carrying sand from the bed of the Damodar
river for use as backfill in some of the underground coal mines --
so many ropeways crossed some roads that it felt as though you
were living under a giant spider's web.
Tony Brewis
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