Rescue workers remain at site of Mine 84 blaze
EIGHTY FOUR – Only 20 to 30 mine rescue workers from CONSOL Energy mines remain at Mine 84 to help extinguish a fire that started in the mine’s belt line entry on Jan. 6. Originally. 10 teams of 10 rescue workers each were called in from CONSOL mines in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky.
The fire is now contained to a pile of smoldering rubble 16 to 20 feet high, 16 feet wide and 45 feet long.
“Most of them went back to their hometowns for a much-needed rest,” said Sandra Tolliver, CONSOL’s public relations manager.
Most of the mine’s 400 union workers are laid off. About 40 miners are working each shift, helping with roof repairs and other work to assist the rescue workers fighting the fire. “They’ve been bolting the roof as they get closer to the pile,” Tolliver said.
The roof collapsed in the area believed to be where the fire began. Roof bolts were damaged and weakened by the fire in other areas as well. The site is being monitored by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA.)
“MSHA released part of the mine (Tuesday)…to let the miners go in to do some basic cleanup work in other areas of the mine. They still aren’t allowing us to mine any coal,” said Mark Segedi, president of the United Mine Workers Local 1197.
Segedi said he expects more miners to be called back to work by the end of the week.
“I’m hoping by Monday everyone will be back to work. (Tuesday and Wednesday) some of the renovations began in some of the areas of the mine,” Segedi said.
MSHA will be investigating the cause of the mine fire, but Segedi said that won’t prevent mining operations from resuming. “The investigation is on-going. There’s nothing in the law that says mining can’t resume while the investigation is going on,” Segedi said.
The fire was first noticed around 9:30 a.m. Jan. 6 in the shaft containing the conveyor belt that carries mined coal to the surface. About 100 miners who were working at the time were safely evacuated using normal mine transport systems. The mine rescue crews from throughout CONSOL’s operations were immediately called in and confined the fire to a 200-foot long section of the belt line.
Crews doused the fire with water from both ends of the fire area, keeping it from spreading to the coal seam exposed by the longwall mining operation.
CONSOL vice president Tom Hoffman said the fire crews had to reconstruct the roof supports as they progressed with their firefighting, slowing the operation.
Hoffman said boreholes have been drilled into the pile of rubble to help cool the hotspots inside it. There had been plans to flood the 45-foot long section of the mine, but Hoffman said ribs between mine tunnels were not strong enough for that technique to be used.