Coal Fire Burning Underground Feared Threat to Residents
Associated Press
NELSONVILLE, Ohio —
An underground coal fire discovered by children plunging sticks into the ground should be put out as soon as possible because it poses a threat to lives and property, officials said Wednesday.
State and local officials who surveyed the site on a wooded hillside overlooking a city street recommended that the U.S. Office of Surface Mining consider the fire an emergency and help keep it from spreading. The agency sent a representative to investigate.
The fire appears to be in waste coal from a nearby unmapped mine believed abandoned since the 1920s.
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