Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-06-09
DANGER Of
MINE FIRES
SOME OF THEM BURN FOR SEW
ERAL YEARS.

Washington Correspondence Boston
Transcript: This weeks fire record in the
Calumet and Hecla mines, considered in
connection with the intelligent efforts
there made to prevent all such outbreaks,
has impressed anew upon mining experts
in the scientific bureaus here, a sense of
the enormous loss of life and treasure to
which the world is in this way constantly
subjected. A fire once started in a mine
is very hard to handle. For mines to re-
main on fire year after year, eating their
way through the coal seams or other
metallic deposits, is not an uncommon
occurrence. The property destroyed i'll
this way makes the most ~extravagant use
of coal in a factory or foundry seem
tritfing. Evidence abounds of sue fires
in prehistoric times. The outcroppings
of burned-out coal seams are frequently
found on western plains; the color of the
soil revealing that the combustion of coal
on a great scale has at some very distant
time taken place. The scenes of the great
forest fires of remote ages are covered
over by a new growth which, in course
of time, and usually after some inter-
mediate groWths, resembles that original
ly destroyed are most disguised, although
that they existed is not doubted. Coal
being a stored product, its wholesale de-
struction by fire before the advent Of civ
ilized man leaves it's traces, which time
does not wholly cover up.
Quite a number of good-sized mines are
now on fire in the United States and have
been for years. The Vulcan mine, on the
Green River opposite Newcastle, in Colo
lado, has been on fire since the great ex-
plosion several years ago, when about
eighty persons lost their lives. All efforts
to quench it have proved fruitless. In
Butte there is a mine which has been afire
since 1884. 1t has been treated with car
bonnie acid gas, generated on a large scale,
quick-lbme and acids, and all the sitting
devices that genius and experience could
devise, but so far without effect. In Penn
sylvania there are several steadily burn
ing mines, and in one place where the
outlet of natural gas is very great the
spectacle that it affords is of surprising
interest. For miles aroun this great
tower of fire may be seen, day and night,
ana the dense black smOk which it gives
OF settles upon the surrounding country.
How a mine gets atire is easily explain
ed, even though the greatest precautions
are taken to prevent it. Coal seams exude
a gas, varying i'm quantity according to
the pressure and the quality of the de-
post: this gas when mixed with air in
certain proportions is about as explosive
as gun powder. In a great group of metal
mines, "copper", iron, zinc and lead, the
oxidation which a fire once started pro-
duces releases the sulphur, which in turn
feeds the flame, and SO makes an endless
NHoIi VI uSSlIuCllOH. sometimes a coal
mime Will be SO constituted that it seems
impossible to operate it without fires and
explosions. One very valuable property
IN Colorado has been abandoned on this
oceount. 1t seems that the columns of
coal supporting the roofs of the chambers.
under pressure, Clipped off a fine dust,
which was loaded with sulphur in the
form of pyrites, so thai spontaneous COM
bustion would regularly set in. Miners,
after several unfortunate experiences,
became afraid of it, and it's treasures now
remain u"nappropriated, awaiting the day
when a fiercer demand for coal or more
successful appliances for fighting fire
will permit the renewal of operations.
Coal mines and metal mines stand in
distinct classes in regard to fire. The
fundamental difference lies in the char
acter of the supports. A copper mine pre-
sents the spectacle of an immense forest
OF timber, tier upon tier, while in a, coal
mine the material itself is left in COL
umns for support Iron has never been
cheap enough for structural use in mines,
although metallic doors at main-shaft
openings are sometimes found in the most
valuable mines, put there purely to effect
a stay Of proceedings in case of fire. This
forest of timbers is naturally an invita-
ton to combustion, and OF that account
1t is customary to fill in the chambers as
soon as all use for them has ceased.
Sometimes a shaft is pushed through to
the surface and the debris there ccumu-
lated is dumped into, the mine, Another
process is the "bulkheading' by masonry
or earth of sections of a mine which have
no further use, in order to lesson the
sweep which a fire once started might
take.
In coal mines, where fires are the worst
on account of the greater liability to ex-
plosions-and it is in these rather than in
metal mines that losses of life occur-the
main source of prevention Is in the air
supply. Safety from fires depends upon
good ventilation, and the mining states
have laws regulating the number of cubic
feet or air per minute that must be sup
piled for each man and animal employed
there. With the gas constantly exuding
from the seams, the only safety comes
from diluting it sufficiently with fresh air
to prevent it's accumulation in a danger
Gus ratio. 1t is just like a leaky gas pipe
In a house. Methods of getting in this
necessary supply of air are varied and in
genious. Some mines ventilate them
selves, especially when situated on the
side of a hill SO that a shaft from the side
sloping upward, like a furnace pipe, may
come in and afford a circuit with the main
vertical shaft. On account of the differ
ence of the temperature inside and out OF
the mine there will thus be a constant
movement of air, sometimes in one direc-
tion In summer and the opposite direction
in winter in the same mine. In the spring
and fall days when the temperature in
side and out does not greatly vary the
mine is left. unless there is a high wind,
without a great amount of circulation.
The next simplest device is the building
of furnace fires in the shafts so as to
make a natural upward current of air.
But this is unsatisfactory by comparison
with the great blowers, or fans, propelled
by steam-poWer. which pump air in with
certainty, or force it out, as
the case NAV he. All SORTS of arrange
ments to accomplish this nave been de-
signed. Only a few DAYS apn a n,nnSul-