Coal-seam fire

A coal-seam fire is a burning of an outcrop or underground coal seam. Most coal-seam fires exhibit smouldering combustion,^[1] particularly underground coal-seam fires, because of limited atmospheric oxygen availability. Coal-seam fire instances on Earth date back several million years.^[2][3] Due to thermal insulation and the avoidance of rain/snow extinguishment by the crust, underground coal-seam fires are the most persistent fires on Earth and can burn for thousands of years, like Burning Mountain in Australia.^[4] Coal-seam fires can be ignited by self-heating of low-temperature oxidation, lightning, wildfires and even arson. Coal-seam fires have been slowly shaping the lithosphere and changing atmosphere, but this pace has become faster and more extensive in modern times, triggered by mining.^[5]

Coal fires are a serious health and safety hazard, affecting the environment by releasing toxic fumes; reigniting grass, brush, or forest fires; and causing subsidence of surface infrastructure such as roads, pipelines, electric lines, bridge supports, buildings, and homes. Whether started by humans or by natural causes, coal-seam fires continue to burn for decades, centuries, or even millennia, until one of the following occurs: 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. Because they burn underground, coal-seam fires are extremely difficult and costly to extinguish, and are unlikely to be suppressed by rainfall.^[6] There are strong similarities between coal fires and peat fires.

Across the world, thousands of underground coal fires are burning at any given moment. The problem is most acute in industrializing, coal-rich nations such as China.^[5] Global coal fire emissions are estimated to cause 40 tons of mercury to enter the atmosphere annually, and to represent three percent of the world's annual CO₂ emissions.^[7]