Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1892-03-04
FIRE IN A BIG COAL MINE
IA MILLION TONS OF ANTHRACITE
BURNING UNDER GROUND.

AZ MILLION TONS OF ANTHRACITE
BURNING UNDER GROUND.
An Immense Bed of Blazing Coal, Cow
sS5 ered by Over Thirty Feet of Solid Rock.
Has Resisted for Over Eighteen Years
All Attempts to Quench the Flame.
In 1873 a fire broke out in the inside slope
s3of No. 6 colliery, near Lansford, in this
state, and it is raging still with all the
fury which the very best of fuel can give
1t. It is in a bed of coal 1900 feet long, 80
feet thick and $50 feet deep, and though it
Is covered with rock and clay to a depth
ranging from thirty to fifty feet, the stones
Q the surface are so heated that a parlor
match laid on them will ignite in an in
stant. In one spot the men employed at
the diamond drill light their pipes with
the ~superheated pebbles. There is very
little external evidence of the fire, save the
constantly rising vapor and the noxious
gas that fills the air and at times kills
birds and small animals that linger too
long in the neighborhood.
The early history of No. 6 was very un-
eventful until about 1873. 1t was opened
some thirty odd years ago by "Old Jim"
Andrews, and was worked OH the water
level for some years without serious acct
dent. and without producing any consider
able quantity of coal. The gangways were
turned east n west at a point $50 yards
vertically below the surface, and a num-
Der of breasts were opened and continued
to be worked until the Lehigh Coal and
Navigation company reclaimed the place.
The company originally obtained control
OF the largest tracts upon the rental of an
ear OF corn Per year, but, as may readily
be Imagined, in lieu of paying the great
increase of rent demanded when the de-
#velopments had been made, the company
acquired title in fee.
The workings were all opened from the
foot of the slope. and the machinery for
pumping and hosting was not only in
place, but working along smoothly when
the ire broke out. 1t is alleged hat a
handful of oily cotton waste used about
the machinery and carried perhaps by the
rats up the slope and behind the timbers,
1gnited spontaneously and caused a confa-
grafton which has since cost a fortune in
cash and coal. 1t is estimated that a yard
of coal in the vein weighs a ton.
The dimensions of the area in which the
fire is now confined, and beyond which it
cannot extend hereafter, indicates l, 17O, 900
cubic yards or tons of coal involved. From
this must be deducted the small mount
which "Old Jim" Andrews and his sue
cessors mined n the portion which may
eventually be saved.
OTHER FIRES IN MINES.
From all these circumstance the state
ment will be the more readily credited that
{ In all the hundred of mine fires in the an
thracite region the one at No. 6 is unique.
There are others which have burned longer.
East Pine Knot, a few miles from Potts
vile, has burned more than thirty years
without working o~ne-quarter so much de-
struction. At Wadesville, in the same
neighborhood, there is q mine which has
burned forty years., n at night is quite
volcanic in appearance, but which likewise
did vastly less damage and was not fought
with the persistency which marked the eff
forts at No. G. Nor did it exhibit the stub
born resistance n energy which ibis has
shown.
There are numberless instances of inter-
nal fires which had much greater start
than this and were subdued in a short
time, but they were below the water level,
and were quenched by turning a stream of
water into the blazing subterranean re-
cesses. In the case of No. 6 the fire started
below the water level, but it spread so rap
idly upward that, while the slope fire was
soon drowned out, there was no known
way OF checking its progress above water
level, except by shutting out the air that
Is needed to support combustion.
This was the first effort made. Brattices
were built across the gangways, stopping
%every'hole and crevice through which air
could reach the fire. The mine was prac-
Ht Sfop11r r,o,%.o,1 L., ,oo1ol All -r.--:-
of water and Air was suspended, and men
were left to watch the result. In two
weeks, when reopened, it was found that
the fire burned with increased fury. The
attempt to smother it was a failure. Then
an effort was made to draw the fire, and
men were engaged in mining the glowing
Goals until enc after another they were
overcome by the heat and gas, and several
lives were endangered.
ATTEMPTS TO U OUT Il FIRE.
At various times men were so far gone
that their recovery was doubtful. General
Superintendent William D. Zehner was
carried out in an unconscious condition,
and for half a day he lay in the brush with
n excited men working over his inanimate
body. Another man was packed in an en-
velope of moist clay, with no part of his
skin exposed but that which covered his
nostrils, and thus he lay for six hours be-
4 fore returning life became apparent.
The third attempt was by drowning.
Dams and brattices were constructed
across the tunnels. Two dams of brick,
laid in the best cement, were built across
No. 6, and one on the other side across No.
IN, which cuts all the veins and extends
right through the entire mountain. Water
was poured in, but year after year there
were surface indications that the fire was
~ still raging. Wherever these indications
appeared it was a sign that there the fire
was getting air, and clay was piled upon
" b spot by men employed for the single
purpose of watching for these manifesto
s$$ations.
At n time an effort was made to des-
troy the atmospheric air by the introduce
tion through a drill hole of lime and nitric
III acid gas, and at other times other gases
Il have been manufactured high up on Lo7
Gust mountain side and forced in upon the
q burning mass, but without having the
N slightest apparent effect upon the energy
SsOf the flames. 0-@
s@ b the unequal contest was waged I'M
ceasingly until 1890, when all hope of ex-
s tinguishing the fire was abandoned, and it