WEBVTT - Fire From the Rocks, Part 3 0:00:03.000 --> 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 you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.840 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In. 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.840 Today we're back with part three of our series on 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:26.000 naturally fueled flames and smolderings and burnings that come from 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.600 the earth itself or from the rocks. So in the 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.479 last episode of this series, we talked about the Burning 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:38.199 Mountain or Mount Wingin in Australia down in New South Wales, 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.440 which is an example of a naturally fueled type of 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:46.440 fire called a coal seam fire, a place where coal 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.760 formations underground are set on fire and then continue to 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:52.640 burn as long as they can, as long as they 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:56.200 have access to oxygen. Probably, and while there's no way 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.440 to know for sure, Mount Windin has been proposed as 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:04.280 as potentially the longest burning fire on Earth. Though. It's 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:08.039 interesting because today, as we discussed last time, there's no 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.920 fire that you can see at the surface. There's only 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:15.759 this large patch of bleached and baked soil which can 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.760 be hot to the touch, and or at least parts 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.399 of it can, and it's a devoid of plant life 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:23.480 within this patch, and then of course, all around it 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.520 there are these interesting sort of there's like a war 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.320 for survival at the border of this burned region, so 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.560 you'll see, like you know, grass is trying to survive, 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:36.240 and then these bleached tree trunks that are long dead 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:39.560 but still standing. And then also around this area you 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:42.800 find these deep cracks or crevices in the earth, out 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.640 of which poor smoke and sulfurous fumes. So the fire 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.160 is burning, but it's burning in the deep. It's burning 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:53.280 out of sight down inside the mountain, fed by oxygen 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:57.880 from the surface. And nobody knows how the fire inside 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:01.480 mountain engine got started, but it's presumed to be a 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:05.480 result of some form of natural ignition. Maybe the coal 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:09.160 at the surface underwent a chemical reaction leading to spontaneous 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:13.800 combustion or or auto ignition as it's called, or maybe 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.359 it was struck by lightning or by a brush fire, 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:20.920 but we don't really know. However, there are many other 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:25.040 coal seam fires that have mostly in one way or another, 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:29.560 been created by human behavior, and a big example here 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:34.160 is coal mine fires. Fires the fires in a coal 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:37.880 seam that gets started one way or another because of 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.880 mining there, and they're actually a number of these that 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.000 are that are still burning throughout the world today. I'm 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:46.520 trying to remember if I know any coal mining songs 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:50.720 about coal mine fires. There's some really good like mining 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.919 town folk songs and whatnot, that I can't remember any 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:57.400 offhand that mentioned fires. The real good coal mining folk songs. 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.639 I know, we're like union songs. Yeah, same yeah, high 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.760 Sheriff of hazard and so forth. Which side are you on? Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.280 that's that sort of thing. Well, yeah, those are great songs, 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:08.680 but I don't know if any of them that mentioned 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:11.920 a coal seam fire. However, I did actually find a 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:15.200 poem that mentions a coal seam fire, and not just 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:17.760 any coal seam fire, but the one that I was 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.720 specifically about to talk about, because so there's a very 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:24.919 famous example in the United States of a coal seam 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:28.680 fire that's been burning for decades and it is situated 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:33.320 underneath the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. The poem I found 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.960 was won by a poet named Leonard Cress, called the 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.520 Centralia mind Fire, and I thought it was really pretty great. 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:44.520 It uh. It talks about the town being the shrine 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:49.160 of the Holy Order of Anthracite, and the last four 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.400 lines of the poem read, the odors of bottom damp 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.760 and methane no longer reek into the streets and ignite. 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.840 The underground tunnels burn, and each vein of coal potential 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.800 use leads to another domain. Oh nice, this is a 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.080 contemporary poet. By the way, Um, yeah, they have a 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.480 website Leonard craft dot com. So the town of Centralia 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.680 is in eastern Pennsylvania. It was settled in the mid 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.200 eighteen hundreds and being situated over a large coal formation. 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:19.719 I think for most of its history it was a 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.119 town where the local economy was based around a coal mine, 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.919 which would not be uncommon in places like Pennsylvania or 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.279 West Virginia, places in the U s where there there's 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.800 a lot of coal and settlements can grow up around 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.680 the extraction industry based on that coal. It was never 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.840 a huge city. I think in the early nineteen sixties 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.080 the town had some a little over two thousand residents, 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:47.080 I believe. But things started changing in the year nineteen 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:51.640 sixty two when part of the coal seam that formed 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:56.200 the town's industrial base caught fire. Now there's still apparently 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.479 disagreement about exactly how it caught fire. One idea UH 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.159 I read is that it happened to because of a 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:07.240 pre existing coal seam fire from a neighboring region that 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:11.039 spread slowly over several decades until it made contact with 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.080 the Centralia seam and then just burned on from there. 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.680 But I think that's a minority position. The more commonly 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:22.880 cited explanations involve a garbage dump, and so the idea 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:26.960 is that the coal caught fire either when a scheduled 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:31.160 trash burn at a local landfill penetrated the mine tunnels 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:34.920 and managed to ignite the coal, or possibly when some 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:38.919 kind of hot ash or coal was dumped directly into 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.920 the pit and set the coal burning. Either way, it's 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:43.760 a good example to think about, how if you've got 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.240 open deposits of coal that are that are exposed to 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:49.719 the atmosphere, you really don't want to be burning stuff 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:53.080 near that. Yeah, Yeah, trying to imagine this sort of yeah, 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.440 the apocalyptic scenario where the your your garbage fires meet 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.880 your your your coal mine tunnels. Yeah. And so apparently 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.520 the locals knew there was a fire in the mines 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.640 beginning in nineteen sixty two, but didn't quite realize what 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:10.039 a problem it was until years later, around the late 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.919 seventies and early eighties, and there are a few touch 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.160 points here. One story from nineteen seventy nine that I've 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:20.240 seen in multiple sources is that there was a local 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:23.640 gas station owner named John Coddington, who was also the 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.520 mayor of the town, who one day went out to 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.560 check the levels in his underground storage tanks. So when 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:31.320 you go to a gas station, you know, you get 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.240 out the pump. The gas is being pumped up from 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.280 these big tanks under the ground that's where the gas lives. 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.719 And something seemed off, I guess when he was checking 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:41.800 the levels in the tanks. So he ended up checking 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.919 the temperature in the storage tanks and found that the 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:49.599 gasoline was a hundred and seventy two degrees fahrenheit. Yeah, 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:52.760 yikes uh, And this did make me wonder. I was like, wait, 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:57.080 what is the auto ignition temperature of gasoline? Because I 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.120 might have guessed that if you heat gasolene up to 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.280 one seventy two degree fahrenheit in the presence of oxygen, 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.640 that would be close to it automatically igniting on its own. 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:09.080 But I checked and no, my intuition was way off. 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:11.760 I see some pretty different numbers, but they're all much 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:15.360 higher than this. A website called engineering toolbox dot com 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:18.920 suggests that the auto ignition temperature of gasoline is more 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.640 like four seventy five to five thirty six degrees fahrenheit 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.920 or to forty six to eighties celsius. So so it 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.520 wasn't gonna catch fire on its own, but that's still freaky. Yeah, 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.800 And quick disclaimer out there, please do not try and 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:37.000 heat up gasoline. Oh no, don't test out these numbers. Yeah, 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.400 this is not an experiment to perform in your kitchen. 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:42.440 In fact, just don't ever take gasoline inside your house. 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.040 But so that was seventy nine. But then a real 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.640 turning point seemed to come in ninet one when a 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.520 local boy who was twelve years old was nearly swallowed 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.120 up and killed. He managed to survive, but he was 0:07:56.240 --> 0:08:00.640 nearly swallowed by the sudden collapse of a sinkhole created 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:04.160 by the coal seam fire. And so for a contemporary 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.160 report on this, I found an AP article published on 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:14.000 February nineteen one called Pennsylvania Fearful fire Rages for nineteen years. 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:16.840 This is a This is a I mean, it's a 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.600 serious story, don't get me wrong. But also the writing 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.320 in this little news pieces, uh really drives home the dread. 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:27.000 Oh yeah, uh yeah. So its It starts off talking 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.240 about opinions of locals about you know, being exposed to 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.440 the fumes coming out of this mine and stuff. And 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:33.760 maybe I can come back to that in a minute, 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:35.520 but first I want to tell the story of this 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:38.520 what happened to this twelve year old boy. So the 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:43.120 article reads quote townspeople said an accident Saturday is heightened 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.000 their fears, leading to a new flurry of government interest. 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:51.240 Todd Domboski, twelve, was playing in his grandmother's backyard a 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.400 few houses from his home when he went to investigate 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:59.200 a tiny whiff of smoke. The ground beneath him collapsed instantly, 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:03.160 The youth engulfed in a hot, stinking tangle of dirt 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:07.040 and tree roots. Escaping when his older cousin pulled him out, 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:12.120 Todd fell about six feet before grabbing the roots. Florence Dumbosky, 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.920 Todd's mother praised her fourteen year old nephew, Eric Wolfgang, 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.080 who was swift and strong enough to reach into the hole, 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.800 grabbed Todd's arm and pull him to safety. A temperature 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.760 of three hundred and fifty degrees was recorded in the hole. 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.560 Its depth was not known, and I did look it up. 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.280 More recent articles mentioned that the sinkhole was later measured 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:35.199 and it was a hundred and fifty feet deep for 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:39.520 about forty fives and choked with carbon monoxide throughout. So, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.400 if you can imagine this, You're just standing on what 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:44.560 you believe to be solid ground, and the ground beneath 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.400 you just collapses. It just opens up, and uh and 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.360 and you're you're grabbing at tree roots that are protruding 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.400 from the dirt, and uh, you managed to get ahold 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:56.840 of it, but down below you is just a pit 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:01.000 into nothingness with with fumes of he l coughing out. 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.920 Absolutely biblical. Um. There's another great paragraph in this, uh, 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:09.880 this ap story that reads, quote feeding on timbers, coal 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:14.439 and gas in a maze of abandoned anthracize tunnels that 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.360 date back to the eighteen eighties. The creeping inferno is 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:22.240 believed to have spread beneath forty acres despite repeated attempts 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.840 to curb it. Yeah, so this article, part of what 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:28.400 it's reporting on is attempts to put out the mind 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:31.880 fire that have failed. I think at the time this 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.400 was written already more than three and a half million 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:36.760 dollars had been spent on trying to fight the fire, 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:39.480 and to no avail. It just didn't work, and so 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:41.959 Another thing this article cites is quotes from local towns 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:44.440 people talking about their fears about the mind fire. Like 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.600 one says that it's kind of scary going to sleep 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:49.600 at night and not knowing if you'll wake up in 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.559 the morning because you've been poisoned in your sleep by 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:55.840 fumes from the mine. And it quotes a local teacher 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.920 named Bob Goodinski who says, we feel like rats in 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.520 a laboratory. No one knows what the effect of the 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.720 carbon monoxide is going to be in the future. The children, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.439 what will be the effect on them. All of this, 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.160 I mean all all this sounds like something you'd encounter 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:11.920 in a in a horror movie, except it is. It 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:16.160 is real life. It's a real life, horrible situation. Concerned 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.880 for the children, the creeping darkness beneath the uh, the earth, 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:24.760 eruptions preying on the innocent. Yeah. Another quote it gives 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:28.160 is from a resident named Sally Sulik, who says, my 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:31.760 nose burns my eyes here, I'm like a zombie. I 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.280 just feel like going to sleep all the time. If 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:37.280 they don't soon do something for us, they'll drive us crazy. 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.440 So in the years since, the population of Centralia has 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.679 been steeply declining. It basically I think between nineteen eight 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:48.360 and two thousand and declined to almost nothing as the 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.559 residents moved away. The local homeowners were offered buyouts from 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:56.280 the government to to relocate, and then at some point 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.680 the government essentially condemned the all of the property in 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:01.920 town on by way of imminent domain. There were a 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:06.280 few residents left who didn't want to leave, but most 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:08.920 of the recent articles I read mentioned only like a 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.240 handful of people still living in the area, fewer than 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.120 ten and uh and apparently nobody is going to be 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:17.200 allowed to move to the area, So it's just it's 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.280 just those people there as long as they stay or 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:23.000 until their deaths. Another thing that struck me about the 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:26.120 story is I was reading an article in Atlas Obscura 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.080 by a freelance writer based out of Pennsylvania named Jim 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.599 Cheney who was writing up the history of the Centralia 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.440 fire but also had been there and taking a bunch 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:37.920 of pictures on the scene, and there was one that 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.600 struck me as really interesting. It was a picture of 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.800 what the author says are the remains of Route sixty one, 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.440 which is a section of roadway a highway that's now 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:53.360 abandoned since it was re routed elsewhere. And if you 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.880 look at the pictures you can see why. Right down 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.280 the middle of the road is a gigantic crack, like 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:04.240 again like bad earthquake movie, uh and the so the 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.280 road is just sort of split down the middle. And 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.480 it actually reminded me a bit of the cracks and 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.440 crevices that have been forming in Mount Wingin for the 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:15.520 past six thousand years or more when you look at 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.440 the pictures of that. I don't know the exact cause 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:20.640 of every surface feature we're looking at here, but if 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:22.200 I had to guess, I would say this is probably 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:25.800 some kind of collapse caused by the by the burning 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.520 out that's going on underneath the surface, just like we 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:30.640 saw in these other cases, or like would have caused 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:35.280 the sinkhole. Now. Of course, sometimes um real life tragedy 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:40.040 does inspire great art. It's worth noting that the town 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:45.679 of Centralia inspired the fictional town of vulcan Vania UH 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:51.520 in the film Nothing But trouble Really, Dan dan Ackroid's 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:58.000 uh uh weird um horror comedy about a bunch of 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.360 sort of sort of. I guess you would say Texas 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:08.160 Chainsaw massacre esque family residing above a big coal mine fire. Um. 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.680 Quite a film. Quite a film. Trystar Pictures or whoever 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.600 it is should have a standing cash prize for anybody 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:19.400 who can manage to watch that whole movie. It has 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:21.360 a lot of fun things in it. You've got a 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:23.880 wonderful digital underground performance. I think you've got to make 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:25.560 it through a lot of stuff before you get to 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:28.880 that is clearly having the time of his life in 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:32.080 this film. Yeah. So if it's if it's, if you 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:35.320 considered a film for an audience of one an absolute success, 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:39.160 I think you know. There's another interesting tidbit I came 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:43.560 across that's related to the Centralia coal mine uh and 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.160 seems geologically interesting, but I couldn't tell if it was 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.280 because of the fire in particular. So there was a 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:54.120 news report I read on the site for a news 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.800 station called w n E P sixteen. I guess that's 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:01.760 an ABC affiliate, and this was out of Butler Township, Pennsylvania, 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.520 and it's talking about a geyser in Pennsylvania. That's not 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.720 something that you would expect to find in Pennsylvania. I'm 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:14.240 looking at the footage here though it it looks guysory, 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.560 but this is not a natural geyser. This is a 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:20.080 geyser that was created when many years ago, the mining 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.240 company I guess that ran the Centralia mine drilled a 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.280 hole in the ground connecting to one of the tunnels 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:30.480 for ventilation of the mine shafts, and somehow now with 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.560 the tunnels partially flooded. I think it's especially when there's 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:38.400 been heavy rain or when the snow melts in the spring. Uh, 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.840 you you get suddenly a geyser gushing up out of 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.400 this ventilation hole, and it looks like a real geyser. 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:46.880 It's just spraying up into the air and then running 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:49.800 off into a nearby creek. And they say that the 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.760 guys are has a distinct smell. It smells like like eggs, 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.720 which I guess is an indication of sulfurous compounds. And 0:15:57.760 --> 0:15:59.680 that would again make sense since you know you've got 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:01.840 the coal down there and it's on fire. And I 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.000 was unable to tell if if this guy's are is 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.760 actually related to the fire or if it's just an 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:11.360 unrelated weird feature of the same mind. You see, Like 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:15.080 there's a quote in the tweet that's attached where the 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:18.680 reporters saying that that it's been there as long as 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.800 quote anyone can remember. Uh, there's a mention of like 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:23.880 some people say, oh, there used to be a second one, 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:25.680 and it is kind of I mean, all of this 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.200 is a stark reminder of how an enterprise like coal mining, 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:32.600 how you're you're you're changing the earth. Uh, you know, 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:34.640 at least on a local level, and of course you 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.280 can get into larger issues of of of actual climate 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:40.800 change as well, but even just on a local level, 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:45.280 like you're just you're you're vastly altering how the uh 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:55.800 the ground beneath your feet is functioning. Yeah, all right, 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:59.840 let's move on to another fire in the earth. This 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:01.960 is a fun one. I'm excited to talk about it 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.400 because it concerns natural fires that may have been burning 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.280 for two and a half millennia, as well as a 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:13.320 mythical monster, and that monster is the chimera, uh and 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.880 the chimere. Of course, I think most folks out there 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:19.800 will have some image of this in their mind. There's 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:24.000 some wonderful depictions of it. There's the Chimera of of 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:28.040 of Arezzo. It's an Etruscan bronze statue of four b 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.520 C E H. That's absolutely gorgeous. If anyone has seen 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:34.919 this or seen a reproduction of this, I've been to 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:38.000 a retzo, but I don't think I've seen this well 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.560 I'm not sure. I didn't put in my notes where 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:42.680 it is currently how so I don't know where its 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.760 current status is, but I've I've seen plenty of images 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.520 of it. You know, it's this wonderful uh, you know, 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.880 dark bronze finish and uh. And it looks impressive for 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.600 a creature that is not always impressive in artistic renditions, 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.879 because it is it is not only a chimera. It 0:17:59.920 --> 0:18:03.360 is the chimera. It is this uh, it is this uh, 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:07.080 this hybrid form that some have criticized for not completely 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.719 making all that much sense and maybe being too counterintuitive. 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:13.720 So at the heart of things, the chimera is, of 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:19.480 course a goat monster. Um. Most of its recognizable body 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:21.040 is usually that of a goat. I guess one of 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:24.720 the interesting things about the Chimera of Arezzo is that 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:27.400 less of it is a goat and maybe that's why 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.400 it's more impressive, Like it looks like the artists decided 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.480 to lean more into the into the lion aspects of 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.639 its body. But but generally, when you here here talk 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.000 of it, you were talking about something that is uh 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.520 in a large part, a monstrous she goat. Uh. It 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.639 roams the myths of ancient Greece and Rome UH. And 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:51.399 the name itself means she goat, and in all depictions 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.840 it has at least some goat properties to its hybrid form. 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.119 That's funny. I certainly believe you that that's true, But 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:00.920 I do not really associate the Amira with a goat 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:04.520 at all. I think, like, yeah, like lions, snake, eagle 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:08.480 or something. Yes, some depictions it has wings. I want 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.080 to stand that. In the Dungeon Dragons Monster Manual they 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.879 give it wings um specifically. Now, the oldest records of 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:19.320 the monster can be found in the sixth book of 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:23.399 Homer's Iliad Uh. And this is you know, written down 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.320 at some point in the eighth century BC, and the 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:28.879 beast here is described as a great fire breathing she 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:31.520 goat with a lion's head and the tail of a serpent, 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.199 and then slightly More recently, hess the Odd wrote of 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:38.760 the Chimera in his book The Ageny, composed between seven 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:44.720 thirty and seven d c h. So, So in uh Theogny, 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.840 hes Odd is discussing the monstrous at Kidna quote divine, 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.720 stubborn hearted at Kidna, half nymph with dark eyes and 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:56.080 fair cheeks, and half on the other hand, a serpent, 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:01.560 huge and terrible and vast, speckled and fled, devouring beneath 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:05.600 caves of sacred earth. And there in the depths of 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:10.320 Kidna mates with the deadly giant uh Typhon, and they 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:15.399 produce quote fierce hearted children uh monsters, all including the 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:20.720 two headed dog Orthos, the three headed dog Cerebus, and 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:24.800 even then the even more headed uh larnaean Hydra, as 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.879 well as the Sphinx, the Nemian lion, and of course 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.480 the Chimera Uh. And here's what Hesiot had to say 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:33.800 about the Chimera. And these are these are all translations 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:39.200 from the Reverend J. Banks translation. Quote. But she Kidna 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:45.320 bore Chimera, breathing, restless, fire, fierce and huge, fleet footed 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.200 as well as strong. This monster had three heads, one 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:52.600 indeed of a grim visaged lion, one of a goat, 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.040 and another of a serpent, a fierce dragon in front 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:59.280 of lion, a dragon behind, and in the midst a 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:04.520 goat breathing forth the dread strength of burning fire, and 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:08.960 in the midst a goat. So like, mostly a goat. 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.320 That's what you're saying, mostly mostly, that's what That's what 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:13.439 I take it to me, is that he's saying the 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.800 middle head is the goat head, I think, or wait, 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:19.280 but it's also saying in front a lion and a 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:23.480 dragon behind. Yeah, So I'm trying to picture this I'm 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:25.119 having and I think this is This is why you 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:27.480 have a lot of variation and how it's depicted, like 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:31.600 that the Etruscan statue, for instance, and other depictions will 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:33.720 have the goat head just straight up growing out of 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.879 the back of the creature your head, but it's a 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.159 good head. And the goat always looks a little awkward there, like, 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.439 what what do you even doing there, buddy? Like you 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:46.040 can imagine the creatures moving around the gast just sort 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.399 of awkwardly making a play for vegetation and stuff to 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.680 nibble on. You see a ripple in the water. The 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:55.120 Jaws theme plays, but it's a goat's head poking out 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:58.880 over the Yeah wait the goats bare, They don't really, 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:03.439 they bleat, Yeah, the bleating. So yeah, you say. Then 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:05.200 you see it depicted other ways where the all the 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:09.080 heads are sort of arranged up front and so forth. Um, 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:11.399 but yeah, you can. I imagine a lot of this 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.960 is coming from different interpretations of of like this passage. Now, 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.959 every monster must have its slayer, of course, and in 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.600 this case it is mighty Bellerophon, sometimes described as a 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:25.679 half human son of Poseidon, who uses Athena's bridle to 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:29.680 capture the winged Pegasus right into battle against the Chimera, 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.040 and then he thrust his spear into the monster's flaming 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:36.920 ma where what happens? The metal instantly melts. Oh no, 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:39.719 he's defeated. Oh no he's not, because then the liquid 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:43.520 metal chokes the deadly monster to death. So I always 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:46.480 found that to be kind of a nice twist. Oh yeah, Now, 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:49.080 surely the hero didn't intend for the metal to melt 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:51.520 and choke the monster. I don't know. Never doubt these 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:55.240 these heroes, these uh, these Greek heroes are are are 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.400 wicked smart. That strikes me as more like a like 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:00.760 a war of the world's type in ng where yeah, 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:04.320 something you didn't even expect kills the monster. Now you're 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:07.960 probably asking, okay, well, how does this tie into places 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:11.480