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The Centralia mine fire is a coal seam fire that has been burning underneath the borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States, since at least May 27, 1962.First thing first , Coal-seam fires :A coal-seam fire is a natural burning of an outcrop or underground coal seam. Most coal-seam fires exhibit smoldering combustion, particularly underground coal-seam fires, because of limited atmospheric oxygen availability. Coal-seam fire instances on Earth date back several million years. Due to fine 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.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 or even centuries until 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.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. 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.Historically, some mine fires were started when bootleg mining was stopped by authorities, usually by blowing the mine up. Many recent mine fires have started from people burning trash in a landfill that was in proximity to abandoned coal mines, including the much-publicized Centralia, Pennsylvania, fire, which has been burning since 1962. Of the hundreds of mine fires in the United States burning today, most are found in the state of Pennsylvania.Some coals may self-ignite at temperatures as low as 40 °C (104 °F) for brown coal in the right conditions of moisture and grain size.] The fire usually begins a few decimeters inside the coal at a depth in which the permeability of the coal allows the inflow of air but in which the ventilation does not remove the heat which is generated. Self-ignition was a recognised problem in steamship times and is claimed to have contributed to the sinking of the Titanic. One well known source of fires is mining breaking into a high pressure cavity of methane gas which on release can generate a spark of static electricity to ignite the gas and start a coal explosion and fire. The same gas static is well known in ships and care has to be taken to ensure no such static sparking can occur.The oldest coal fire in China is in Baijigou (白芨沟, in Dawukou District of Shizuishan City, Ningxia) and is said to have been burning since the Qing Dynasty (before 1912). Nearby a coal fire in Germany, many Mediterranean insects and spiders were identified in a region with cold winters, and it is believed that elevated ground temperatures above the fires permitted their survival.List of Mines worldwide coal-seam fireAustraliaBurning Mountain - a naturally occurring, slow combusting underground coal seamMorwell, Victoria – the Great Morwell open cut mine caught fire in March 1902 and burned for over a month. It was extinguished by breaching the nearby Morwell River with explosives to flood the mine. The fire was found to have been caused by sabotage from incendiary devices.[23][24]Hazelwood Power Station – a 2 km coal face in the Hazelwood open cut mine was set alight by a bushfire in October 2006[25] and again in February 2014.[26] Thousands of residents were affected by the fire at the Hazelwood coalmine in 2014 which burned for 45 days sending smoke across the community of Morwell in Victoria.[27] Government advised the vulnerable groups of people in South Morwell to temporarily relocate due to the danger of PM2.5 particulate matter.CanadaElkford, British Columbia[28]Merritt, British ColumbiaCarmacks, YukonSmoking Hills, Northwest TerritoriesChinaIn China, the world’s largest coal producer with an annual output around 2.5 billion tons, coal fires are a serious problem. It has been estimated that some 10–200 million tons of coal uselessly burn annually, and that the same amount again is made inaccessible to mining.Coal fires extend over a belt across the entire north China, whereby over one hundred major fire areas are listed, each of which contains many individual fire zones. They are concentrated in the provinces of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. Beside losses from burned and inaccessible coal, these fires contribute to air pollution and considerably increased levels of greenhouse gas emissions and have thereby become a problem which has gained international attention.GermanyIn Planitz, now a part of the city of Zwickau, a coal seam that had been burning since 1476 could only be quenched in 1860. In Dudweiler (Saarland) a coal seam fire ignited around 1668 and is still burning today. This so-called Burning Mountain ("Brennender Berg") soon became a tourist attraction and was even visited by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Also well-known is the so-called Stinksteinwand (stinking stone wall) in Schwalbenthal on the eastern slope of the Hoher Meißner, where several seams caught fire centuries ago after lignite coal mining ceased; combustion gas continues to reach the surface today.IndiaIn India, as of 2010, 68 fires were burning beneath a 58-square-mile (150 km2) region of the Jharia coalfield in Dhanbad, Jharkhand. Mine fires started in this region in 1916 and are rapidly destroying the only source of prime coking coal in the country.IndonesiaCoal and peat fires in Indonesia are often ignited by forest fires near outcrop deposits at the surface. It is difficult to determine when a forest fire is started by a coal seam fire, or vice versa, in the absence of eyewitnesses. The most common cause of forest fires and haze in Indonesia is intentional burning of forest to clear land for plantation crops of pulp wood, rubber and palm oil.No accurate count of coal seam fires has been completed in Indonesia. Only a minuscule fraction of the country has been surveyed for coal fires. The best data available come from a study based on systematic, on-the-ground observation. In 1998, a total of 125 coal fires were located and mapped within a 2-kilometer strip either side of a 100-kilometer stretch of road north of Balikpapan to Samarinda in East Kalimantan, using hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment. Extrapolating this data to areas on Borneo and Sumatra underlain by known coal deposits, it was estimated that more than 250,000 coal seam fires may have been burning in Indonesia in 1998.[12]New ZealandBurnett's Face, West CoastStrongman Mine, West CoastWangaloa, Otago[39]Pike River Mine, West CoastMillerton area, Stockton Mine, West Coast, South Island, New ZealandNorwayIn 1944, Longyearbyen Mine #2 on Svalbard was set alight by sailors from the Tirpitz on its final sortie outside of Norwegian coastal waters. The mine continued to burn for 20 years, while some of the areas were subsequently mined from the reconstructed Mine #2b.South AfricaTransvaal and Delagoa Bay Collieries near Emalahleni (formerly known as Witbank), Mpumalanga has been burning since the mine was abandoned in 1953.United StatesMany coalfields in the US are subject to spontaneous ignition. The federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) maintains a database (AMLIS), which in 1999 listed 150 fire zones. In mid-2010, according to OSM, more than 100 fires were burning beneath nine states, most of them in Colorado, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Utah and West Virginia. But geologists say many fires go unreported, so that the actual number of them is nearer to 200, across 21 states.In Pennsylvania, 45 fire zones are known, the most famous being the Centralia mine fire in the Centralia mine in the hard coal region of Columbia County, which has been burning since 1962.Burning Mine, near Summit Hill, caught fire in 1859.The Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana contains some 800 billion tons of brown coal, and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804 to 1806) reported fires there. Fires have been a natural occurrence in this area for about three million years and have shaped the landscape. For example, an area about 4,000 square kilometers in size is covered with coal clinker, some of it in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, where there is a spectacular view of fiery red coal clinker from Scoria Point.Laurel Run, PennsylvaniaNew Castle, ColoradoGlenwood Springs, ColoradoLotts Creek, KentuckyRuth Mullins, KentuckyTruman Shephard, KentuckyNew Straitsville, OhioSan Toy, OhioSego, UtahVanderbilt, PennsylvaniaCentralia, PennsylvaniaPersonally, i used to work in a mine Dhanbad in which a panel was under fire and continuous nitrogen is flushed inside through complex pumping mechanism. Currently where i work having a large area under dump which is under fire and sparking red zones can be clearly seen at night.12 June,2017 Jharkhand mine fire: Railway Board cancels 19 trains, diverts seven in Dhanbad-Chandrapura segmentRepresentational image. ReutersThe railway line in Jharkhand is being closed down from 15 June in view of an underground mines fire, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) of Dhanbad, Manoj Krishna Akhori, said on Monday. The Board has also suspended movement of a goods train, including loading of coal at nine sidings, on the 34-km long Dhanbad-Chandrapura segment under the East Central Railway.The Railway Board on 10 June had declared the Chandrapura Railway line "unsafe" due to its proximity to the Jharia mines fire. The declaration came on the recommendations of the Director General of Mines Safety (DGMS). According to DGMS reports, 14 km out of 34 km long track are in the area affected by the mine fire. The DGMS had stated in its reports that the land around the coalfield has finally started caving in, and public utility assets, including the age-old railway track, are no longer safe.Coal-seam fire - WikipediaJharkhand mine fire: Railway Board cancels 19 trains, diverts seven in Dhanbad-Chandrapura segment - Firstpost