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Partly_Dave t1_jd56147 wrote

Reply to comment by valkyrjuk in TIL A coal seam in Australia is believed to have been burning for 6,000 years, making it the oldest coal fire. The site's name is Mount Wingen but is commonly called Burning Mountain and the fire is traveling south 1m per year discoloring the ground as it goes. by jamescookenotthatone

My first job was at a sawmill. They had an area for air drying timber that was previously a dump for sawdust and bark, and it was capped with a metre of fill.

One of my tasks was to take the temperature of the ground around a crack in the fill that had been smoking for ten or so years.

There was no way to put out the fire, but the concern was if it broke through, all the semi-dried timber stacked on top would go up in flames. Plus, the site backed onto the forest, so a fire would be disastrous.

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