Underground Fire (Keele, 2019)

[AlexUrbex1]

Wiki for the area:

The main employer in Silverdale for well over 100 years was Silverdale Colliery, also known locally as Kent's Lane. The first shafts were sunk in the 1830s and the colliery initially mined ironstone as well as coal. The main user of both the minerals was the nearby Silverdale Forge.

The colliery was completely rebuilt during the 1970s when three new drifts were sunk to exploit new reserves in the Keele area. Production increased and the pit mined over one million tonnes annually but was closed in 1998, the last deep mine in North Staffordshire to close.

One of the coal spoil heaps from the Silverdale mine on Hollywood road between Silverdale and Keele caught fire in 1996, 2 years before the site's closure, and continues to burn two decades later. While the fire is primarily underground there have been times when the heat and smoke have made it to the surface setting fire to parts of Holly Wood for which the road is named. Speculation has been raised that attempts to fight the fire or open it up for housing work could result in what's left of the Silverdale coal seam catching fire as well.[3]

Update: There has been plans for a number of years to put the fire out. This would be a mammoth task that involves digging the entire area. I cannot see that work has started but I will have to take a drive down there and look.

The explore: For something a bit different this was really good. There are a number of other underground fires in the UK. Has anyone else been to one of them?

Googlemaps view of the fire

It can be difficult to get to with these huge mounds which we presume are part of the fire management.

I think you could cook a meal down this hole as its so hot.

 

[pirate]

Jeez I didn’t know we had one of these in the U.K.........I’ve heard of the Centralia fire in the US

 

[raisinwing]

Yeah pretty nuts isn't it! I'm pretty sure that they are now pushing on with a housing development on the site, not sure how much progress has been made as of yet. Will take a look next time I'm passing by.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Thats crazy. What an excellent report. I would expect it in some other countries by here. Well done on the idea to explore this, really fascinating stuff

 

[KPUrban_]

Never expected something like this in the UK, interesting.

Also, building houses on there? Heating bills will be cheap.

 

[alex17595]

Must have got the land super cheap if it's worth building on a plot like this.

 

[Bertie Bollockbrains]

Very interesting and has educated me. I too did not know that the UK had such things.

A quick look on Dr Google tells me there is one near Gateshead that has been active since 2015.

Probably the most spectacular of this sort of thing is the Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan (a country that is nearly impossible to get into) which is a gas fire, believed to had been lighted purposely by Soviet engineers some 40 years ago to stop the spread of methane gas.

 

[AlexUrbex1]

Turkmenistan is off the scale. I love the unique and that would be so near the top of my list.

 

[pirate]

Probably the most spectacular of this sort of thing is the Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan

Wow that place is nuts

 

[mingerocket]

Iv not been through Hollywood woods for a couple of years but when I used to do alot of mountain biking over that way we'd ride through the woods adjacent quite often. You could definitely smell the smoldering. I work with a guy that worked at Silverdale and hes told me there were attempts made to extinguish the fire over the years, but none successful.

 

[mingerocket]

Oddly enough they're known as "gob fires"

 

[john75]

As a child i used to live in a coal mining area in the north east. I was told then that pit heaps were very dangerous things and the internals were liable to spontaneously combust. I think there are a few in the UK smouldering away.. i would not think building on them was a great idea and what about the gaseous products of combustion not to mention subsidence..

john..

 

[bikebouy]

Brymbo Steelworks had an underground fire for many years, can remember my dad saying they put fire hoses down it for a few days and all thy got was hot steam and gas, brymbo was demolished and all the coal dug out by open cast, so that probably ended the fire hopefully for all the owners of the new houses built on the site.