Where Nature Meets Culture—Plus Wildfire, Dogs, Environmental News, and Writing with a Southern Rockies Perspective.
November 06, 2010
Western Colorado is Burning--Underground
Wildfire Today links to an interesting piece on western Colorado coal fires that burn for decades. I did not realize that there were so many in southwestern Colorado. It's the sort of thing that I associate with, say, Pennsylvania.
An old friend of ours has land just outside Boulder that was on fire for ages, still might be for all I know. I also recall hearing a couple years ago that one in China had finally gone out after burning for 800 years.
“But those big circular collapses? Those subsidences where the earth has caved in can provide oxygen to a fire. And then they can get very, very hot. Which leads to more hollowing out, more collapsing.”
Wow, so you can end up with a sort of burning underground coal karst, sinkholes and all! That subsidence probably presents a bigger hazard than air quality issues.
3 comments:
An old friend of ours has land just outside Boulder that was on fire for ages, still might be for all I know. I also recall hearing a couple years ago that one in China had finally gone out after burning for 800 years.
“But those big circular collapses? Those subsidences where the earth has caved in can provide oxygen to a fire. And then they can get very, very hot. Which leads to more hollowing out, more collapsing.”
Wow, so you can end up with a sort of burning underground coal karst, sinkholes and all! That subsidence probably presents a bigger hazard than air quality issues.
Hah! I was just going to report Peculiar's fire! Still on AFAI (& Lib) K.
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