WEBVTT - Fire From the Rocks, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.800 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.640 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:20.640 we're back with part two of our series on naturally 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:24.560 fueled flames. Now, in the last episode, Rob you you 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.360 opened with a question that we never fully got to 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.479 the to the bottom of the question was what is 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:35.839 the oldest continuously burning fire on Earth? And uh, or 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:37.839 you may have phrased it a little bit differently. That 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:39.760 was one question. I guess another one would be like, 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:42.360 what's the longest a single fire with the with the 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.000 single common origin has ever burned? Right? Yeah, but essentially 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.640 getting down to the same question. Yeah, yeah, I guess 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.360 the last one is really unknowable. The first the first 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:56.120 what is the oldest continuous fire still burning today? Is 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:59.280 I don't know, maybe still difficult to know, but easier 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:01.560 than the other one. So I don't know if this 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.440 question can be answered definitively. But we did at least 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.800 establish that all of the oldest eternal flames maintained by 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.399 humans at various temples and memorials and so forth around 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:16.559 the world are minuscule in longevity. Compared to some sites 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:20.640 of naturally fueled burning, places where some chunk of the 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:25.640 earth itself is continuously on fire or smoldering at the 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:29.120 place where it meets oxygen. And one example we looked 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.560 at in the last episode is a very strange and 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:37.600 beautiful place in the Northwest Territories of Canada called the 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:42.880 Smoking Hills, where eroding coastal hills and cliff sides burned 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.880 by themselves as a result of an exothermic chemical reaction 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:51.480 that happens when pyrite rich mudstone is exposed to the air, 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.840 so erosion happens, part of the cliff comes away, and 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:57.440 some of this mudstone that has you know, fine grain 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.920 pyrite in it, oxidizes it he eats up, and then 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:04.720 some combustible elements that are within the mudstone sort of 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.640 smolder or catch fire, and that just creates a self sustaining, 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.000 self igniting burn that can go on for a long 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.240 long time. All evidence points to the conclusion that the 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:19.560 Smoking Hills have been burning for hundreds or even thousands 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:22.360 of years. So there might be a question about whether 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.040 you'd want to call this technically an example of fire 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.120 or not. I mean, it is smoldering rather than you're 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:32.240 not usually seeing like big sort of dancing flames coming 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:34.680 off of it. But it's smoking and burning four hundreds 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.919 or thousands of years. It certainly is a very long burn. 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.160 But is it the longest? Well, I think the answer 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.680 is probably not. Again this this question is hard to 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:49.799 answer conclusively. But one site I have seen proposed as 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.680 the holder of the title of the longest burning fire 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.560 on Earth is a place in Australia known as the 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:01.000 Burning Mountain. The Burning Mountain is technically known as Mount 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.880 Wingin spelled like winging like w i n g, and 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:09.240 it's Windin, which is a name allegedly derived from a 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:13.720 word used by the native Wannerooa people meaning fire. The 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:17.280 Burning Mountain is located in the Upper Hunter Valley of 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:22.200 New South Wales what's today about three kilometers north of Sydney, 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.200 and the earliest written records of the mountain trace back 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:29.560 to stories published in the Sydney newspapers in eighty eight, 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.240 though the site had been used and known by the 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:36.000 Wannerooa going back much longer. To get a feel for 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.440 the extent of this site, I was looking around for 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.520 photos and videos and I found a really cool video 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.720 somebody uploaded to YouTube of aerial drone footage, so you 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.080 can look that up if you want. But if you 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:49.560 are peering down at the the mountain from the air, 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.800 what you will see is a sort of smooth crest 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.440 of a mountain peak where a section that looks to 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:02.000 me to be about I'm not so good at estimating 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.360 area by by sight, but it looks like maybe half 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.280 the size of a soccer field something like that. Uh, 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:11.680 it's been scorched clean, so all of the ground around it. 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.000 This is not a bare rock mountaintop. This is a 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.240 fully forested uh and and grass covered mountains So all 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:21.000 of the ground around this burned area is populated with 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:25.040 with trees and grasses, But within the burned zone there 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.400 is only bare earth, soil and gravel, either bleached white 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:33.920 like ash or burned red like brick. And near the 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.560 edges of the burned field there are these pale skeletons 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:41.160 of dead trees, some laying flat. I guess maybe those 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:43.840 are the older ones that have fallen down and some 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:46.920 still standing. The ones that are still upright seem to 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:48.760 be the ones that are a little bit farther away 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:51.920 from the center of the burned region and all around 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.800 the area, even in sections that are now covered in 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:59.120 grass and vegetation presumably covered in it once again. Uh, 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.680 there are no usable cracks and fissures in the earth 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:05.920 like you might see opening up during an earthquake scene 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.440 in a disaster movie. Yeah. I would say this, this 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.160 footage is definitely worth seeking out because when you hear 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:14.520 burning Mountain, and even with that description, you still might 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:19.599 be imagining some sort of more door esque, very you know, 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.200 volcanic vision of what we're talking about here, and and 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:25.919 the reality is in many ways more subtle than that 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:30.719 extreme vision, but but also inherently, uh, you know, weird 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:35.680 when compared to most other environments you're gonna encounter. Yeah, totally. 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.119 And I think there are indications there may have been times, 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.520 even in fairly recent history, where it it looked scarier 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.760 than it does now, though it certainly does look very strange. 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:49.640 One of the earliest written accounts that's been widely cited 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:54.640 and republished was an investigation and field report called Burning 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:59.560 Mountain of Australia by the Reverend Charles Wilton UH, published 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.760 in eight nine. I dug up this article and I 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.080 wanted to read and mention a few sections from it 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:08.120 because it was interesting. Wilton begins by acknowledging that he's 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.280 waiting into a kind of ongoing controversy and would have 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:16.040 to contradict previous reports, including the earlier reports that Mount 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:20.040 win Gin was a volcano with a crater or called 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:24.320 ea uh. Now Wilton's investigation revealed that the mountain was 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.200 probably not a volcano and certainly did not have a 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:31.760 mouth or crater, And he writes as follows, that portion 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.200 of the mountain wingin where the fire is now burning, 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:39.440 and which is a compact sandstone rock, comprehends parts of 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:43.160 two declivities of one and the same mountain. The progress 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:45.920 of the fire has of late been down the northern 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.480 and highest elevation, and it is now ascending with great 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.840 fury the opposite and southern imminence, from the situation of 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:57.160 the fire having been in a hollow between two ridges 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:01.080 of the same mountain. Mr Mackie, referring to somebody who 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.640 gave an earlier report, was probably induced to give to 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.120 the clefts in the mountain the appellation of a crater. 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:12.760 The fact is the rock, as the subterraneous fire increases, 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:17.840 is rent into several concave chasms of various widths. I 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:22.360 particularly examined the widest of these. The rock, a solid 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.640 mass of sandstone, was torn asunder about two feet in width, 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.680 leaving its upper and southerly side exposed to view the 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.880 parts so torn asunder, having slipped as it were, down 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:38.160 and sunk into a hollow, thus forming the convex surface 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.240 of the heated rock. I looked down this chasm to 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.360 the depth of about fifteen feet. The sides of the 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:46.960 rock were of a white heat, like that of a 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:51.200 lime kiln, while sulfurous and steamy vapors arose from a 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:55.320 depth below, like blasts from the forge of Vulcan himself. 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.040 I stood on that portion of the rock which had 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.280 been cleft from the part above, and on hurling stones 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.160 down into the chasm. The noise they made in their 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.280 falls seemed to die away in a vast abyss beneath 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.200 my feet. So I love the part where he starts 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:14.160 chucking rocks into the chasms in the earth. So okay, 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.120 he has established this is probably not a volcano. There 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.640 there is no crater, no caldera. Instead, there is a 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:25.400 burned area on the surface of the mountain, producing sulfurous fumes. 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:28.840 And then there are these cracks or chasms in the earth, 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.120 and the fire seems to be burning down in the 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.400 deep of these cracks now in comparing it to the 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:37.800 Forge of Vulcan. Though, this comes back to something we 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.600 touched on in the last episode that when people encounter 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.800 these they have no choice but in many cases too 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.080 but to compare them to human fire technology on one 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:50.679 level or another. Yeah, especially industry, right, like both of 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.640 the earliest written accounts of the smoking Hills in the 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.920 Northwest Territories compared them to h compared them to human industry, 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:00.760 one to a chemical fact to read, the other to 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:05.960 a brick manufacturing location. And that many of the oral 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:09.520 traditions of the New Valuate people said that these were 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:11.720 the fires coming off of the hills, were the cooking 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.520 fires or smoke from the fires of the little people 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:18.640 or the invisible people who lived inside the mountains there 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:23.200 after they've been driven away from human companionship. So coming 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:25.679 back to Reverend Wilton's account, he he goes on to 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.520 write that there are a bunch of these chasms there, 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:32.360 of varying width, and they're constantly belching out smoke and 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:37.440 sulfurous vapor, and the chasms are also quote beautified with 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:42.040 efflorescent crystal of sulfur, varying in color from the deepest 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:46.560 red orange occasioned by Ferruginists mixture. I think that means 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:50.400 containing iron or iron oxide to the palest straw color 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:54.680 where alum predominated. And he said he could not spend 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.520 much time near these clefts because the ground was too 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.360 hot to stand on and the vapors were not quote 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:06.360 most grateful to the lungs. Yeah, and he he makes 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.839 a bunch more descriptive observations. He says that he did 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.640 not observe any lava or trachite there, and these would 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.800 be rocks that would be signs of volcanic activity, so 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:21.040 he seems to be accumulating evidence against the interpretation of 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.280 this mountain as any kind of volcano. He also says 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.520 that he didn't see any coal at the Burning Mountain, 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:30.600 though he notes that he found coal in many places nearby. 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:34.560 So this, this region of the country seems to be 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.920 coal rich, which is important. We'll come back to it. 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:40.840 And as one weird acide, he's like, oh, by the way, 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:43.880 right on the other side of the Burning Mountain, there's 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:47.000 a spring that's great to drink from, nice cool water, 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.000 especially after you've been breathing smoke from the fumes from 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.080 the chasms. You go and get yourself some of the 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:56.959 water from the spring. It will quench the folks. It 0:10:57.080 --> 0:10:59.680 is not a good idea to drink untested or untreated 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.760 spring water. I can can have stuff and it's not 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.960 good for you, though, I honestly I don't know if 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.800 that's more or less likely if you're getting your spring 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.559 water from a from a mountain that's on fire. Yeah, 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:15.960 because I can imagine the water potentially tasting strongly of 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:20.080 sulfur or something. But I don't know. Maybe it's just 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:24.160 a wonderful spring that was quite refreshing. Now. As a 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.800 general comment on his observations, Wilton writes, quote, I have 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:31.360 compared the phenomenon presented by this mountain with written descriptions 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.280 of volcanic action and subterraneous fire in other portions of 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:39.280 the globe, but can discover no exact similarity between them. 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.440 The burning Mountain of Australia may, I think be pronounced 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:46.520 as unique one other example of nature sports of her 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.960 total disregard in this country of those laws which the 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:55.320 philosophers of the old world have since assigned her. I 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.360 don't know about that, Wilton. This is certainly not a 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:00.840 unique phenomenon. We can come back to that in a minute. 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:03.320 But but he is correct, you know, it depends on 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.360 what he's looking to, I guess in in history books 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:11.000 and other accounts, because uh there can be obviously large, 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:15.199 big differences between what one could roughly classify as a 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:18.640 as fire erupting from the ground or burning earth in 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.680 one part of the world and m in something that 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:24.080 fits the same description elsewhere in the world. And we'll 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:26.840 we'll get to some examples of that in a bit, right. 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:29.920 Uh So, in the years since, study on the Burning 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:33.040 Mountain is continued, and it is clear that it is 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:37.040 in fact a coal seam fire. So you can imagine 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:41.080 there are masses of coal inside the mountains, sometimes you know, 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:45.120 ribbons of coal running through the rocks, and at some 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:49.640 point in history that coal must have been exposed to 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:53.320 the air to some extent and set on fire, and 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:57.720 it has been slowly burning or smoldering ever since. Now 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.439 how is it first ignited? Ultimately, we have no way 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:04.400 of knowing that. But hypotheses include lightning strikes, that would 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.320 make sense. So lightning strikes exposed coal seam that that 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.040 sets it ablaze and it just continues throughout the years 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.240 after that. It could have been a natural brush fire. 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:17.040 Brush fire gets close and does the same thing. There 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:18.840 are some theories that it could be a kind of 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:24.120 spontaneous spontaneous ignition of exposed coal, because when coal is 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:27.720 exposed to air and gets really hot, maybe baking under 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:31.240 the sun, it can start burning on its own. Or 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:34.240 there could be some kind of chemical reaction, maybe involving 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:37.319 you know, sulfur like we like we observed in the 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:41.360 Smoking Hills the oxidation that kicks off that burning process 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.320 in Canada. And then of course, obviously there's there's the 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:48.280 other possibility which I think Smoky Bear would definitely point 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:50.720 out to us, that there's always the chance that that 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:57.000 human beings have a hand in setting such things ablaze. Possible, yes, 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:01.720 either by accident or intentionally. Yeah, And so one of 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.320 the articles I was reading mentioned the possibility because I 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.000 think there are some early reports that make it that 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:11.880 make the Burning Mountain sound more hellish and and uh 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.880 stupendous than it is even today. I mean, today you 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.960 don't see flames anywhere. You just see and smell the smoke, 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.320 and you see the scorched earth on the on the 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.720 surface and in these chasms leading down below. So something's 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.720 happening deep down in their fires in the deep, but 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.320 you're not seeing tongues of flame or up from the earth. 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:33.400 I think some early reports did say that that they 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.080 observed like lights and stuff like that, which may have 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:38.400 led to the initial reports that this was some kind 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.760 of volcano if they were seeing actual like glowing flames 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.080 or or something like that coming out of the mountain, 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.880 which could have been caused by if there was a 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.520 section of the coal seam that was just closer to 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.040 the surface. Right, it's closer to the surface, so more 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.000 oxygen's getting to it, it's getting really hot, it's producing 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:58.600 these flames and there within you know, a distance from 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.400 the surface that can be seen the naked eye. Yeah, 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:04.600 because we are dealing with the situation where you know, 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.040 geologic processes are need to be considered, and and also 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.280 where a situation where fuel is being consumed and so 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.120 a certain amount of change is going to take place there. 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:17.760 Like even in the Wilton quote that you you read here, 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.560 like he talks about the great fury. Uh, that is 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.760 observable here and perhaps this is just you know, his 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:29.240 his description being you know, colorful and enthusiastic. But uh, 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.760 you know that that doesn't necessarily match up with say, 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:36.520 you know, these modern drone images in the modern drone 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.280 footage that we were talking about earlier, Right, So, the 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.560 surface appearance of a coal seam fire like this could 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:45.520 could vary a lot over the ages as it continues 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:47.680 to burn. I think one of one of the biggest 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.760 variables just being like how close is the coal to 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.960 the surface. Now, coming back to the question of how 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.160 long the fire has been burning and how we could 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.840 estimate this as the oldest continuous fire on Earth, it 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.280 appears to be burning underground at a depth of roughly 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.800 thirty meters below the surface. So while it has an 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.000 enormous quantity of fuel that it can access in the 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:15.360 coal seam that feeds it, it's actually burning incredibly slowly. 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.600 And um, I'm pretty sure that the main reason for 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.720 this is that it's so deep that it has very 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:25.800 little access to oxygen. So for a mundane analogy, if 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.840 you ever have experience working a grill, think about getting 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.360 a fire going. Uh, and maybe you want this fire 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.200 in the grill to burn low and slow instead of 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:36.680 hot and fast. What would you do there, Well, you 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:40.800 manipulate the vents, right. You squeeze them down to only 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.720 the barest crack of an opening, so that the fire 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:46.840 has very little access to oxygen. You can't close the 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:49.160 vents completely, of course, because then the fire will just 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:51.880 go out there's no oxygen. But if you keep just 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.400 a little trickle of oxygen going in, the fire will 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.080 burn slowly at a lower temperature and last for a 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:02.520 longer time without extinguishing its few aal source. So I 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:05.480 think that's probably what's going on in this case as well. 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.720 There's you know, a bunch of coal down there, but 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.800 it's burning through the coal very slowly. It's smoldering over 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:14.399 the years because it's deep and the oxygen not a 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.159 whole lot of oxygen gets to it at once. So 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.360 scientists have actually been able to estimate the the average 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.320 rate at which the fire spreads within the burning mountain, 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.840 and a common estimate I've seen is that it appears 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:32.080 to be going roughly one meter per year. And because 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.520 we can track the historical movement of the burned area 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.399 through geological markers, we can actually estimate the age of 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:42.679 the fire, as the authors mentioned in a in a 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.879 paper called Thermal Infrared Imagery of the Burning Mountain coal 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:51.359 Fire published in Remote Sensing Equipment Buy C. D. Elliott 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.040 and Adrian W. Fleming in nineteen seventy four. And so 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.399 the authors of this paper right quote, baked sediments and 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.280 slag produced by the urning Mountain coal fire have been 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.119 traced over a distance of six kilometers to the northeast 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.880 of the present chimney. The burning mountain coal fire itself 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.560 is of considerable antiquity. If it's assumed that the fire 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.760 is burnt continuously and migrated steadily south at the present 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.240 main rate of movement, and again this is estimated to 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:22.200 be roughly one meter per year, it would have taken 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:26.520 approximately six thousand years to cover the distance indicated at 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:29.840 the surface by its effects, though they acknowledged the fire 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.800 may in fact have been burning for a much longer period. 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.080 But it's kind of nice that that's some nice even 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:37.040 math to round it out, right. So if it's gone 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:39.840 about six kilometers and it's going about one meter per year, 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:43.040 it seems to have been traveling for at least around 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.360 six thousand years. And I don't know how credible these 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.000 next claims are because I don't know the methodology behind them, 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:51.960 but I've at least seen it stated in some other 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:54.879 articles that the fire could be much older, maybe more 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:56.919 than a hundred thousand years old, but I don't know 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.320 why anybody would say that. So, as far as I 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:02.520 can tell, even if only the low end estimate of 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:05.520 six thousand years is true, that would make the Burning 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:09.280 Mountain the longest burning fire on planet Earth. Yeah, I 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:13.080 mean that that dwarfs anything we've discussed thus far or 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.480 will discuss. After this, I was reading about the site 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:21.080 on the National Parks Australia page and they actually summarized 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:26.040 a Wannaroua story about the origin of the mountain, which 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.840 was that there was a woman who was waiting for 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:33.359 her husband to return from battle, and she was sitting 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.240 upon the mountain and her husband did not return, so 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:38.520 I guess he was killed in battle. And when when 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:42.239 he didn't come back, she was so distraught that she 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.679 cried out to the sky god beyalm Me to to 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:49.400 kill her. And the god did not kill her. Instead 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:53.239 he turned her into stone, and so the tears she 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:58.880 wept became fire and set the mountain itself on fire. Now, 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.720 this is this is a site that that that the 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.399 people can go and see. Uh. You can be looking 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:08.679 it up on the website here. Uh, you can go 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.920 to Burning Mountain Nature Reserve and there's a one a 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.520 one to two hour hike you can take and you 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.720 can go to this observation platform that's also visible in 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:20.439 the drone footage that we were looking at. So I 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.000 know we have a number of listeners out there in Australia. 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.320 So if anyone out there has has been to this 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:28.920 site and has some firsthand experience they would like to share, 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.320 we'd love to hear about it. Yeah, totally. If you've 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:33.560 been there right in, let us know what it's like. Yeah. 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:35.960 The website also points out please note remember to take 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.639 your binoculars if you want to bird watch, because serious 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:51.359 bird watchers are like Burning Mountain. No, no, those birds Okay. 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:56.040 But so this is one type of naturally fueled fire, right. 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.760 This is a coal seam fire, and there are other 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.240 fires like it, though none that we know of that 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:03.520 are as old as this one. Some of the other 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.080 major ones actually have clear human origins, like there were 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:10.800 some famous ones in uh in the coal mining regions 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:14.760 the United States, like the famous Centralia fire in Pennsylvania. 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:17.199 There also I know a lot of coal seam fires 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.920 throughout China where places that have where coal has been 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:24.520 mined have accidentally been set a light. How long has 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:28.000 the Springfield tire uh fire supposed to have been going 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.159 on on the SIMP cells, we wouldn't have our tire fire, 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:35.680 and um, I don't know how long is how many 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:42.360 years has Simpson's been on? Seventy four years at this point. Now. 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:45.639 Coal seam fires have all kinds of interesting characteristics and 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:48.160 also that they can be incredibly troublesome because of course 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.720 they're just sitting there belching smoke into the atmosphere without 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:54.119 even being of use. I mean, it's not even like 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:57.359 a coal power plant that is belching the you know, 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.159 this carbon into the atmosphere and polluting the air, but 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:01.919 at least you're getting power out of it. This is 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:05.240 just doing that and nothing's coming from it. It's just burning, 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.159 and it's in many cases hard or even impossible to 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.280 put these out. I know there have been various schemes 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:14.080 involving dumping like liquid nitrogen and stuff in and and 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:17.000 some of these have just proven pretty much impossible for 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.840 people to extinguish. Yeah, though it is interesting how it 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:25.520 is kind of the naturally occurring equivalent of of human 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:28.560 coal industry, you know, like it because of uh, because 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:31.600 it's it's coal, it's burning, it's just not doing anything 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:35.600 for humans. Uh So, coal, of course, is is a 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:39.080 fossil fuel formed from ancient organic matter converted through heat 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:41.880 and pressure. And like we've been saying, coal seams are 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:44.360 just blanket like coal deposits in the rock, and when 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:47.360 exposed in an outcrop or even in an underground environment, 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.680 these seams can and will burn. Yeah, if oxygen can 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:54.040 get to the coal, that's that's dangerous, right, But of 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:56.680 course this is not the only natural fossil fuel that 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:59.719 can be set alight and lead to a sort of 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:04.920 assistant ongoing fire that that stretches beyond human control. That's right. 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:07.200 One of the big ones here is um is a 0:23:07.680 --> 0:23:10.960 is a natural gas fueled fire, And this is exactly 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:13.640