Since 2000, more than 20 mine fires have occurred in the United States. Two miners were fatally injured as a result of an underground mine conveyor belt fire in 2006 in West Virginia. This accident, along with other tragedies in 2006 at the Sago Mine and the Darby Mine No. 1, which resulted in 17 additional fatalities, led to MINER Act of 2006. Section 11 of this Act required that a Technical Study Panel be formed to provide recommendations on the use of belt air and new technology that may be available for increasing the fire resistance properties of conveyor belts used in underground coal mines.
A project ("Reducing Hazards of Conveyor Belt Fires in Underground Coal Mines") is underway to reduce the hazards of underground coal mine fires, particularly in conveyor belt entries, by applying recent technological advances in the areas of fire-resistant and fireproof belt materials, belt fire suppression systems, atmospheric monitoring systems, and computer codes for predicting and assessing, in real-time, the impact of fire on the mine ventilation system and the spread of fire contaminants throughout the mine.
During the same time period, 25 spontaneous combustion fires have been reported in underground coal mines. The spontaneous heating of coal in mines often occurs in a gob area and may not be easily detected. The risk of an explosion ignited by a spontaneous combustion fire is also present in mines with appreciable levels of accumulated methane. In fact, three of the mine fires from the reported period resulted in subsequent methane explosions. There is an urgent need to address the spontaneous combustion fire issue and reduce the spontaneous combustion hazard for western coal mines.
A project ("Reducing Spontaneous Combustion Fire Hazards for Western Coal Mines") is being conducted to develop new methods to prevent, detect, control and suppress spontaneous heating in western coal mines. Computational fluid dynamics modeling techniques are being used to simulate the spontaneous heating of coal in longwall gob areas. These simulations are used to evaluate spontaneous combustion control methods and to determine nitrogen injection strategies to prevent/suppress the spontaneous heating in longwall gob areas.
It is expected that the research output from these projects will substantially reduce the number of fires and injuries/fatalities due to fire and significantly improve the level of fire safety within the mining community.
NIOSH Projects and Activities
Project
Objective
Reducing Spontaneous Combustion Fire Hazards for Western Coal Mines
Use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling techniques to reduce spontaneous combustion hazards for western coal mines
Reducing Hazards of Conveyor Belt Fires in Underground Mines
Evaluate and apply recent technological advances in fire-resistant belt materials, atmospheric monitoring and belt fire detection systems, and belt fire suppression systems; use fire risk assessment methodology and computer modeling to predict and assess the impact of fire on a mine's ventilation system and the spread of fire contaminants
Contracts and Grants
Title
Contractor
Objective
Technical Solutions for Enhancements to Mine Safety Using Barricade II Fire Blocking Gel (200-2008-24618c)
Northwest Barricade LLC and Barricade International
Assess the potential of Barricade II Fire Blocking Gel to prevent, retard, and fight underground mine fires
Redesign of the MFIRE 2.20 Mine Ventilation Software (200-2009-30794)
Applied Sciences Group
Redesign the DOS-based MFIRE 2.20 as a class library with discrete event simualtion capabilities that can be used to build new simulation programs to model mine ventilation and fires
References
The following is a selection of publications and products relevant to NIOSH's fire fighting research efforts under the MINER Act. For information about NIOSH's overall mine ventilation research program, see the
the Fires topic page and complete list of Fire Fighting and Prevention Downloadable Mining Publications.
Effect of Air Velocity on Conveyor Belt Fire Suppression Systems Rowland-JH; Verakis-HC; Hockenberry-MA; Smith-AC | 2009 SME Annual Meeting and Exhibit, February 22-25, Denver, Colorado, preprint 09-135. Littleton, CO: Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Inc., 2009; :1-6
Evaluation of Smoke Detectors for Use in Underground Mines Litton-CD | 2009 SME Annual Meeting and Exhibit, February 22-25, Denver, Colorado, preprint 09-072. Littleton, CO: Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Inc., 2009; :1-8
In-Mine Study of High-Expansion Firefighting Foam Chasko-LL, Conti-RS, Derick-RL, Krump-MR, Lazzara-CP | 2009 SME Annual Meeting and Exhibit, February 22-25, Denver, Colorado, preprint 09-095. Littleton, CO: Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Inc., 2009; :1-8