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CNN Live Today

Underground Coal Mine Fire That Started in 1962 Still Burning

Aired May 31, 2002 - 11:13   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: For the past 40 years, Centralia Pennsylvania has been a hotspot, literally. An underground coal mine fire that started in 1962 has been burning beneath the town ever since. And our Jeanne Meserve joins us live from Centralia with the story of a fire down below.

Hi there, Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka.

That fire is burning a couple of hundred of feet beneath me, but let me show you this. This is a vent, and if I knock some dirt around there you can see the steam coming up. It's venting up here, along with some gases that are not too appealing, like carbon monoxide.

It's calmed down as the day has gotten a little drier. But the heat has not. If you look up here on the hill, you can see that the shimmer that the heat has created. And Tim Altarez (ph), up there from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, has put a probe in the earth to take the temperature -- Tim, do your water demonstration here to kind of show people just how hot it is here.

It's going to get uphill from this, you'll see why. Look at that instantaneous steam. It evaporates just as soon as it hits the ground, and here's an explanation for just why it is so hot.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE (voice-over): A coal mine is a cold place, even on a warm day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And if you look up there, you can see it's about 45 degrees in here right now.

MESERVE: But coal when it burns, hot. In Centralia, underground temperatures of 1,000 degrees have been measured.

(on camera): It's like a big furnace.

GIL WISWALL, WEST CHESTER UNIVERSITY: Exactly. Exactly. If you've ever seen a coal fire burning in a stove -- a coal stove heating a home -- it's very much like a big, hot furnace.

MATT LIVINGHOOD (ph): I can feel it. I mean, my feet are getting very hot.

MESERVE (voice-over): Matt Livinghood (ph) strides around on top of the fire, examining the vents from which steam and gases are escaping. Livinghood (ph), fascinated with Centralia's fires since childhood, did research in college on the mineral deposits that precipitate out of this scene when it hits cooler air.

LIVINGHOOD (ph): This is shermagite (ph), and the shermagite (ph) binds together these rocks and it's very brittle. And you can see the rocks that were initially there. And the shermagite (ph) is just the yellow kind of cement matrix that's holding it together.

MESERVE: Livnghood (ph) has seen shermagite (ph) one other place, at a volcano. There are no volcanoes here in central Pennsylvania, just a mine fire generating the same kind of heat.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: And let's find out just how hot it is today. Tim, what are the results up there?

TIM ALTAREZ (ph), PENNSYLVANIA DEPT. OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: Well right here in this ground crack, it's about 850 degrees Fahrenheit.

MESERVE: 850 degrees Fahrenheit, very hot indeed, if you ask me.

Steve Jones is here also from the DEP -- Steve, is that the highest temperature you've measured here?

STEVE JONES, PENNSYLVANIA DEPT. OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: No, we've had ground temperatures here over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

MESERVE: And what about underground? Any sense of how hot it gets there?

JONES: I think there have been monitoring (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of temperatures around 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit.

MESERVE: You were telling me that the recent weather had increased the ground temperature here. Explain that.

JONES: Well we've had a lot of funnel systems moving through recently. And the high and low-pressure systems cause the mine to ventilate. And when that happens, it kind of fans the flames.

MESERVE: It's sort of like a big bellow then?

JONES: Certainly is.

MESERVE: How many acres have been affected by this?

JONES: Right now there's about 450 surface acres that are impacted by the fire.

MESERVE: This has got to be dangerous. You're talking about surface temperatures of 1,000 degrees. Have you tried to keep people away from here?

JONES: We recently put up a series of new signs warning people of the dangers of the fire.

MESERVE: But in the past, that hasn't worked, has it?

JONES: Not very well.

MESERVE: People take them as souvenirs?

JONES: Yeah. And the fences that we put up also, they take those.

MESERVE: Yeah, it really has become a huge tourist attraction here. Let me just walk over here, and you can see behind me the valley. Steve tells me that this whole valley, about 3,000 acres, could eventually be consumed by this fire -- Fredricka, back to you.

WHITFIELD: So, Jeanne, I don't get it. How and why did that fire start?

MESERVE: Well there was a strip mining pit here that had been turned into a trash dump. And back in 1962, around Memorial Day Weekend, it was set on fire to clean it up. No one thought there was an exposed coal seam in there. There was. It caught on fire and it has been burning through that coal seam ever since.

WHITFIELD: Oh my gosh. And they can't put it out?

MESERVE: No they tried -- they made some efforts back in the 60s to excavate. There were some other experimental things tried. Nothing worked. At this point, they're just going to let it burn itself out, but it could take another 100 years.

WHITFIELD: Wow, that's amazing. All right, Jeanne Meserve, thank you very much.

MESERVE: You're welcome.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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