Recent Developments and Practices to Control Fire in Undergound Coal Mines

Coal mine fires cause serious threat to the property and human lives. Outbreak of fire may be dealt with advanced fire suppression techniques like Infusion of inert gases or liquid nitrogen, Dynamic Balancing of pressure, Reversal of underground mine ventilation, Application of nitrogen foam, Inertisation of Goaf, Water mist etc. The paper addresses all those control techniques in detail. Success story of controlling fires in coal mines of different parts of the world are reported. Results of a recently completed Science & Technology (S&T) project with regard to various fire suppression techniques like Infusion of liquid nitrogen, Injection of high pressure high stability nitrogen foam, and Water mist on open fire are also discussed.