Interesting, do you have a reference...would love to share with a few of my green "friends".
“In China alone, the figures given by various scientific groups vary in this regard. According to reports of the Beijing Remote Sensing Corporation (BRSC), Aerophotogrammetry and Remote Sensing Bureau of China Coal (ARSC) and works of Professor Guan Haiyan from China, the annual loss of coal due to coal fires in China is between 10 to 20 million tons. However, figures given by Rozema et al. in 1993 are 10 times higher which means that 100 to 200 million tons of coal are lost due to coal fires in China. Assuming these latter figures to be a realistic measure of the coal being burnt, the CO2 emitted, solely due to these fires, would amount to 2 to 3 percent of the world’s total CO2 emission due to fossil fuels. “