https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire
Posted on 07/26/2016 8:01:34 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
World's largest sawdust dump is on fire 'and will burn for years'
By The Siberian Times reporter 25 July 2016
Greenpeace concern as firefighters say they cannot extinguish 3 year blaze with smoke visible from space.
The mountain of sawdust is the size of more than 800 Olympic swimming pools at a site in the Ust-Kutsky district of Irkutsk region. A council spokesman said: 'It is now impossible to extinguish dump with such an amount of sawdust.
'Obviously, it will keep burning for a few more years.'
It has remained aflame winter and summer for around three years - and is seen on the video below.
Greenpeace say the sawdust dump is the largest of its kind in the world, and the campaign group has raised concerns over the smoke pollution from the site.
Already there is more than two million cubic metres of waste dumped here, reported to be waste from the Trans-Siberian Forest Company. Every day 15 new trucks arrive, each carrying around 70 cubic metres of sawdust.
The site of the endless fire is 10.4 hectares in size or 1.1 million square feet.
The company has taken measures to prevent the spread of the smoldering flames, with a mineral border line around the dump and firefighting equipment on permanent standby.
Alexander Yaroshenko, head of the Forestry Programme of Greenpeace Russia, said:'Over the past three years this fire has caused dangerous smoke to Ust-Kut and nearby settlements multiple times, with overall population of about 50,000 people.
'That is an emergency situation of at least regional scale.'
Measurements taken by state watchdog Rospotrebnadzor show that the dump fire did not cause changes to concentration of carbon dioxide in the air near the dump on days when Ust-Kut was covered with smoke, say reports.
The area has been hit recently by wildfire smoke, too.
My thoughts exactly
This is a green peace fund raiser release sent to a sympathetic news outlet to make a nothing story
Go to southwest Texas and southeast New Mexico and stand anywhere rural look in any direction and you’ll see scores of well gas burn off flames
Arguably more candlepower
Sawdust smolders
I guess nobody owns gerbils or hamsters over there.
I can put it out in 15 days for $3 million.
There are several underground fires in PA that have been burning for DECADES.
I would view sawdust as a resource.
Why do they just dump it?
Socialist Central Planning. The Central Government decides what products will be produced, and in what amounts. They had a quota for lumber. In fulfilling the lumber quote the mill generated waste sawdust. The mill got no credit for the waste sawdust because the Central Planners set no quota for it.
In a free market system someone would say “Geeze, I can offer the lumber mill a small price for their sawdust, buy some other materials on the free market, manufacture a new product [such as a paraffin stick], advertise it, distribute it to retail outlets or by mail order, and make a profit.”
But the Central Planners had no quotas for paraffin sticks, either. Didn’t even imagine such a thing existed. Nor anything else that could be made from waste sawdust.
I don’t think sustainability and alternative fuels are much of a thought in resource rich Siberia.
Or used to make fiberboard?.....Or make TNT sticks. Or make house insulation....or... It’s because Russians are not capitalists and therefore are not encouraged to be innovative.
And certainly not with “smoldering flames”!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire
There was a coal mine that burned for over 100 years near Boulder Colorado.
I once had a pile of wood shavings from a wood planer. About 40’ in diameter and 15’ high. It somehow caught on fire. After the initial blaze was extinguished, I had to make it a routine of every 6 hours or so, day and nite, to recheck for hotspots. I would find hot spots underneath the surface and force a garden hose down in it. that would put it out for a while, but there was always another flare up. Went on for more than a month. Good times!
Periodically the coal would spontaniously combust internally and start smoking. They would then have to bulldoze the piles to cool them off.......
There is a mountain in Australia that has been burning for six thousand years.
Centralia:
I live near there. Not much to see these days. They are even ridding the highway of the exits to get there.
I suppose in just a year or two the whole place will be a dirt lot in the middle of the woods.
I can’t figure out why people aren’t DYING to pump a water pipeline there and get steam power. Instead we just stand there and feel sorry for ourselves.
Wood Pellets are good, so is MDF. You would think both would be welcome in an area like this. MDF is considerably less expensive to create than plywood, which means they could build better houses for less money. They could give wood pellets to the residents for free and still not consume all the sawdust, however just charging the cost of manufacturing would be a win win. Too bad there are not any capitalists there.
Fire and water do the exact same thing to wood. It just takes longer for water.
"6000-year-old coal fire moves one meter per year"
What a waste - don’t they know how much Ikea furniture they could make with that?
What will that mean for the price of cheese?
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