Underground coal fire in Colorado near Meeker prompts emergency wildfire prevention project

A hidden fire that has been burning underground in Colorado near Meeker since the 1930s is now hot enough that state crews are racing to stop it from sparking a wildfire above ground.

The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety has launched an emergency fuels reduction project at the historic Black Diamond coal mine in Rio Blanco County after crews recorded temperatures climbing from roughly 150 degrees to nearly 800 degrees in some areas this year.

"This is not an actual coal fire mitigation," said Tara Tafi, a senior project manager with the agency. "This would be more of a surface fire mitigation, where we're trying to limit the ability of that coal fire to start a wildfire."

The underground mine fire has existed for nearly a century, but officials say recent drought conditions, cracking ground and dying vegetation have dramatically increased concerns heading into Colorado's dry summer season.

"We noticed that a large area of trees sitting directly above where the fire is kind of showing its ugly face," Tafi said. "There was about an acre-and-a-half of pinyon pines that had died off in the last year or so, and that created some concern about fire danger."

According to the state, the underground fire was first identified in the 1930s after the Black Diamond Mine was abandoned. Since then, the site has remained an ongoing monitoring and mitigation challenge, with periodic flareups and hotspots appearing over the decades.

This latest spike in activity accelerated quickly.

"Now it had gone from about 150 degrees to about 400 degrees," Tafi explained. "And as soon as the site was accessible in March, we got out and did a visit to the site, and those temperatures had elevated to about 800 degrees."

Crews discovered fractures in the ground venting heat through dry grasses and brush; conditions officials fear could ignite a surface wildfire similar to previous coal seam fires in Colorado history.

The state says it will remove roughly 1.5 acres of vegetation surrounding the hotspot, build fire breaks, and establish safer access into the steep terrain above Anderson Gulch.

Right now, the site can only be accessed on foot.

"We mobilized and started cutting the road in ... to get out there," Tafi said.

The emergency project, announced by DRMS earlier this month, is expected to continue through July. Officials are also planning a 1.3 mile access route along a historic mining road to improve long-term monitoring and emergency response capabilities.

The challenge with underground coal fires is that putting them out is extraordinarily difficult, according to DRMS.

"The mine's not open, so it's not like there's an open hole in the ground that we can pour water into," Tafi said. "We would likely have to get out there with drills and drill a bunch of holes. But further complicating that is the mine map for this mine is not very detailed. So we don't exactly know where the mine is."

Even if crews could reach the burning areas, the fire itself may extend beyond the mapped mine boundaries.

"You can't get the water everywhere," she added. "And you would need so much of it."

Colorado has roughly 36 underground coal fires that continue to burn beneath the surface, some for more than a century. Officials said many cycle through periods of higher and lower activity.

"Underground fires are notoriously difficult because there's a seemingly endless amount of fuel available," Tafi said.

The heat itself can linger underground long after flames disappear.

"The surrounding rock to the coal can hold heat for a very long time," she explained. "The heat is probably the hardest one to get rid of."

The concern is not theoretical.

Coal mine fires were initially investigated as a possible contributor to the destructive Marshall Fire in 2021, though investigators ultimately ruled them out. In 2002, the Coal Seam Fire near Glenwood Springs destroyed 29 homes and burned more than 12,000 acres after an underground coal fire ignited vegetation above ground. DRMS said this emergency project is focused on making sure that does not happen near Meeker.

"By taking preventative action now," the agency wrote in its press release, "the agency aims to reduce future risk, maintain safe access, and support ongoing monitoring and future mitigation of the underground coal mine fire."

The project is being coordinated with the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the Bureau of Land Management and the Town of Meeker.