LandDesk
Geologic temper tantrum Coal seam blaze caused spectacle in Durango, hot dogs included
by Jonathan Thompson
I
nvestigators have yet to settle on a cause of the devastating Marshall Fire that tore through grasslands, strip malls and housing developments outside of Boulder late last year. They have ruled out lightning and downed power lines, but continue to look into the possibility that it was ignited by a coal seam fire. That got me thinking about coal fires and a moving mountain. At any given time, thousands of fires smolder in abandoned, active mines and un-mined coal seams nationwide. Sometimes these subterranean blazes are sparked by lightning or wildfires. Other times, air and water get into the seam catalyzing an exothermic reaction that causes coal spontaneously to ignite. The fires can burn for hundreds of years or even longer. Most go largely unnoticed. That is, until they do something that demands attention – like start a wildfire. The Marshall Fire began near the abandoned Lewis coal mines near Marshall, an unincorporated area northwest of Superior. Colorado geologists first observed an active coal fire here in the 1980s, but it is not uncommon for subterranean infernos to migrate to the upper world. In 2002, a coal seam fire started a 12,000-acre blaze near Glenwood Springs and at least one of last summer’s Montana fires has been traced back to a burning coal seam. Sometimes the underground fires manifest in even more dramatic ways. In December 1932, a triangular ridge south of Durango called Carbon Mountain, in what is now the Bodo Wildlife Area, moved. Actually, it kind of erupted, albeit not in a volcanic sense. “The whole hill is quaking, grunting, groaning,” a Durango News reporter wrote on the day of the calamity. “Boulders large and small and hundreds of tons of earth continue toppling from the crest of (Carbon) Mountain. Every few minutes, a great cluster of boulders would break loose. Clouds of dust marked their pathway as they shot out into space, landing in the valley to the north.” The next morning, hundreds of folks headed out to the once-unremarkable hill, located where the Animas River slices through the Hogback Monocline, to witness the geologic temper tantrum. Others flocked in from out of town, out of state and even abroad. Popular Mechanics magazine sent someone to report back on “this huge mass of rock and earth, apparently loosened by some mysterious, subterranean disturbance … unlike any other such earth movement known to scientists.” Someone captured the movement on film. A young man set up a hot dog stand near the mountain’s base to capitalize on all the gawking. Even Will Rogers, during a visit to the town, piped in, suggesting that a bit of dynamite under the
8 n Feb. 17, 2022
Durango’s unassuming Carbon Mountain created a stir locally and nationally when it seemingly spontaneously erupted in 1932. It’s believed one of the coal seams that lie deep within caught fire. Hundreds of coal fires smolder across the West, with one near Lewis being fingered as a possible cause of the Marshall Fire./ File photo feature would keep it moving – and keep President Franklin D. Roosevelt said he sions along the Hogback Monocline inthe tourist dollars flowing. was sending 200 members of the forest creased, most likely because drilling liberNewspapers would call Carbon Mounconservation corps to the Little Thunder ated the methane. People also began tain the “playboy peak,” “galloping steed” Basin near Gillette, Wyo., to fight coal noticing more coal seam fires along the and “bucking bronc” of the Rockies. Some fires. “Colorado’s flaming Carbon MounHogback around this time. called the cantankerous hill “Democrat tain is only one of over 100 uncontrolled In 1998 alone, three underground coal Mountain” and the debris flow on its fires that have been eating away at one of fires were discovered along the Hogback on north face “Hoover Slide.” But the name our national resources for years,” the Asso- Southern Ute land, along with evidence of that stuck for decades and that my grandciated Press reported at the time. “In 28 prior fires, indicating they were a natural mother used to refer to the hill when I was coal fires (across the West’s public lands) and fairly common occurrence (lending fura kid was “Moving Mountain.” carefully studied in 1928 and 1929, the ther credence to the Moving Mountain theOnce the harebrained theories of the coal endangered was shown to have a ory). Coal seam fires are notoriously causes – vulcanism, West Coast tremors value in excess of $62 million.” difficult to extinguish. In 2000, the Southand exploding bootlegger stills – were cast The coal fire-methane theory also fits ern Ute Tribe spent $865,000 trying to put aside, the serious work of figuring out with the unusual geology of the Hogback out one of the aforementioned fires, injectwhat was going on began. John W. VanMonocline. The layers of rock are tilted uping 4,400 cubic meters of foamy cement derwilt, with the U.S. Geological Survey, wards here, like the rim of a big, shallow into the seam. It didn’t work. declared that all the hype was nonsense bowl, exposing the Fruitland coal formaResearchers theorized that methane and attributed the mountain’s shimmies tion. That opens a pathway for oxygen to within the coal seam may have been fuelto a run-of-the-mill landslide caused by fuel coal fires and allows methane within ing the fire; cut off the fuel and you could surface water seeping into clay shale and the coal seams to ooze into the air, leading possibly stifle the blaze. So they dug a making the sandstone layer on top slip. to seemingly supernatural events. There are “picket fence” of wells upstream of the Others had a counter-theory: A burning tales of campfire embers igniting the Pine coal fire to intercept the gas, which is put coal seam met up with pockets of associRiver near where it cuts through the Hoginto a gathering system, processed and ated methane gas. The gas exploded and back and folks lighting methane seeps as a piped to market. Today, the project capthe ground subsided, leading to slope insort of natural holiday light display. And tures some 250,000 cubic feet of methane stability and “jazz movements,” as one then there was this one: “A married man per day, robbing the fire of critical fuel headline described the phenomenon. This who enjoyed his liquor would return home and keeping a substantial amount of powould better explain the explosions, sulafter a night out on the town only to find tent greenhouse gas out of the air. It also furous odor emanating from the mounthat his wife had locked him out. … He earns the tribe – a major energy developer tain, quickly melting snow on the would light methane flowing from a vent in its own right – carbon credits. north-facing ridge and small wildfire that pipe attached to the main casing of a water The Land Desk is a newsletter from Jonathan broke out atop the ridge. well to produce heat to keep warm.” P. Thompson, longtime journalist and author of At the time, coal seam fires were burnAfter oil and gas companies started River of Lost Souls, Behind the Slickrock Curtain, ing all over the West. In May 1933, a week drilling for this coalbed methane in and the newly released Sagebrush Empire. To after another Moving Mountain episode, earnest in the 1980s, the methane emissubscribe, go to: www.landdesk.org.■
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