Coal fire in Cantralia Pennsylvania - How long has it been burning? Why can't it be extinguished?

Question

And if a coal pile catches fire, what type of extinguisher is best to use?

Answer 1

It can't be extinguished because it has a constant source of fuel. It's burning along a seam of coal that stretches for miles; it isn't just a pile of coal, but the actual underground coal deposits that have been burning since 1962 when someone burned a pile of trash in a strip mine pit, and it ignited the coal

Answer 2

It has been burning since 1962. Coal fires are so hard to put out because the fire doesn't just burn like a regular fire, it also smolders, like charcoal in a barbecue but a lot hotter. There's plenty of fuel down there. But if you try to put out just the part you can reach, there's always a part you can't reach that is still smoldering.

The best way to put out a small coal pile fire is to bulldoze it. But you can't do that with huge coal fire. In Centralia, it's not feasible to use as much water as it would take to put the fire out because the area is too spread out and well-drained. Pumping in that much water would cost too much (more than the annual budget of the state of Pennsylvania).

There is a famous landmark in Australia that is a coal vein that has been burning for 6,000 years.

Answer 3

Since 1962. Started when a trash dump caught fire and accidently started the coal seam on fire.

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/~prakash/coalfires/global_distribution.html

Coal fires will burn without oxygen forever, or at least until the coal is all burned. (That's how coke is made - burning coal in an air-tight kiln, to be used to produce steel from iron ore.)

The main thing you can use to extinguish a coal fire is water - billions of gallons of water.

China and India have the largest number of coal fires in the world. See above link, or < http://www.coalfire.caf.dlr.de/intro_en.html > for more.

Answer 4

the coal mine fire you're refering to can be extinguished, but no one in the area can afford the cost to put it out. These fires, though in the ground, can pull oxygen for 1000's of holes so they won't get snuffed out by closing the entrance.
I think simply using water will do it, as for the mines, the temp is so high water is ineffective as it evaporates before it touches the fire.

Answer 5

dang I forgot about that. Has been burning for decades as I recall