Science: Fire

In 1885 a mob of miners, maddened by labor grievances in the coal fields of southeastern Ohio, filled a mine-car with coal, doused it thoroughly with kerosene, ignited it, started it down the tracks of an inclined shaft in which, at the end of its run, it fired the unmined coal. That fire, started on the property of Columbus’ Hocking Coal & Mine Co., has burned on underground ever since. By last week it had burned a subterranean area of twelve square miles.

Smoke pours from long, jagged fissures or “chimneys” which have opened in the farm land of Perry and Hocking Counties, the home of 5,000 people. In places the 51-year-old fire has pierced above ground, burning buildings, destroying valuable timber, causing some deaths. Property values in the towns of New Straitsville and Shawnee and environs have dropped because of smoke and noxious gases. Roadways have sunk as much as five feet and at danger points signs warn motorists to proceed at their own risk. Miners in nearby active workings have been asphyxiated by carbon monoxide seeping through from the fiery shafts. Occupants of twelve houses” near New Straitsville were evacuated when the foundations buckled. The town’s $80,000 schoolhouse is considered in danger. A farmer named Rush dug roasted potatoes out of his ruined garden. Twelve million tons of coal have been destroyed, and 28,000,000 more lie along the paths of the fire’s slow advance. Attempts have been made to head off the fire by sinking cement walls, by forcing steam underground, by diverting a creek into a shaft. All failed.

Some months ago WPA took cognizance of the subterranean inferno, not only because of the damage done but also in view of the job possibilities of a fire-control project. Mining engineers were convinced that the fire could be confined within its present limits, there to burn itself out eventually, by laying down massive barricades of non-inflammable material. WPA officials made plans to provide a year’s work to 300 men, spend $360,000 of which New Straitsville would contribute some $32,000.

Last week work got under way. WPA diggers attacked Plummer Hill with spades. Two steam shovels swung into action. Under the technical surveillance of the U. S. Bureau of Mines and Ohio State engineers, one 600-ft. tunnel barrier and two mile-long barricades, part tunnel and part opencut, will be laid down. Holes will be filled with sludge, shafts and cavities sealed to cut off air. Incidental coal dug out during the operations will be distributed gratis to those who need it.

This week is national Fire Prevention Week in the U. S. To publicize this observance the National Geographic Society issued a “bulletin” from which it appeared that Ahun, a town of 2,000 souls in central France, has had no fire for 600 years; that Holland, in which most buildings are of brick, suffers a smaller annual fire loss than Cleveland. The Society spoke favorably of such modern control methods as fireproof wood (TIME, Jan. 20) and the copper-tube detector which has been installed in the White House, the National Archives Building, the restored colonial edifices of Williamsburg, Va., banks, museums, warehouses, art galleries, libraries, laundries. In this device, concealed in the walls, the heat of a burning wastebasket is enough to expand the air in the tube, move a small diaphragm, close an electrical circuit, flash an alarm to the central fire station.

Meantime, Science was of little avail last week to 40,000 terror-stricken inhabitants of Western Oregon where forest fires raging in the parched timberland were whipped down to the coast by high winds. Fire completely destroyed Bandon (pop. 1,500), burned parts of De Poe Bay and Myrtle Point, menaced a half-dozen other small communities and 400,000 acres of timber, including some of the famed redwoods of Northern California. In Bandon, where practically all buildings were razed, a dozen bodies were recovered. One man was killed clearing wreckage, some 30 others were missing. Of the 5,000 firefighters in the woods, four were killed by falling trees. Army and WPA trucks, headlights aglow in the pall of smoke, nosed into the stricken region bearing food and portable shelter.