Journey through the Jharia coalfield located in the Dhanbad district of Jharkhand exposes one to a dystopian landscape defined by smouldering craters, smoking fissures, and sinking earth, while the ground is often scorched and scarred from the underground fires that have raged over a century. Plumes of noxious fumes carrying oxides of sulphur, nitrogen and carbon monoxide constantly billow from cracks in the earth, and blanket the area.
The landscape is dotted with roads collapsing, railway tracks abandoned, houses cracked due to subsidence, and huge pits visibly glowing or smouldering. There are improvised homes with ash coating built next to burning holes and the human settlement is in grave peril.
Heat is so intense that it can melt shoe soles. FIG – 1 will give some idea about how bad the situation is. As per Union Ministry of Coal, Press Information Bureau, the Centre approved the Jharia Master Plan with a budget of Rs. 5,940.47crore and a target to shift 15,080 families from 81 high-risk zones by December 2028. While it successfully shrank the fire-affected areas from77 to 27 sites and constructed thousands of homes, progress has been heavily slowed down by delays in relocation, land disputes, and resistance from residents unwilling to leave their livelihoods.
Jharia coalfield fire
The Jharia coalfield in Jharkhand is an exclusive storehouse of prime coking coal in India. The Jharia mines were opened for coal mining in 1894. The underground fire was detected for the first time in 1916 at the Bhowrah colliery. This blaze has been burning ever since scarring the landscape. At present more than 70 mine fires are reported from this region which covers more than 100 square miles. Individual fires extend to depths of 15 to 140 meters below ground surface.
More than 37 million tons of prime coking coal have already burnt away, and about 2 billion more metric tonnes are inaccessible because they are blocked by fires, which would place the total losses around $220 billion. These fires are very difficult to extinguish.
Excavation, blanketing (surface sealing), digging trenches around fire zones to isolate burning coal, and flooding the affected zones with water are the only potentially viable methods to extinguish underground coal fires. Excavation and cooling the excavated strata and overburden can assure a fire has been extinguished. Such gigantic operation of excavation of about 490 million cubic meters could approach a cost of about $2.4 billion – and could take decades to complete the job.
Surface sealing is viable provided there is no potential lapse in maintenance of the blanket. Extinguishing by flooding is a long-time process – and may be difficult to implement. The problem is quite complex and to solve it requires huge amount of money. Considering these points less costly methods like installation of geothermal plant or underground coal gasification plant are other viable options to recover the blocked assets.
Cause of coal mine fire
The Jharia coal mine fires were probably caused by unscientific, shallow and underground coal mining that exposed coal seams to air, triggering spontaneous combustion and long running underground smouldering. Spontaneous coal mine fires start when exposed coal slowly oxidises.
Oxygen absorbed on coal surface reacts with chemicals present in the coal producing heat slowly. When heat generated is more than heat loss net temperature rises. As temperature rises, and once local temperature reaches ignition temperature, which is around 80-1300C, it sustains burning, while air required for combustion comes through cracks, voids, ducts, old tunnels etc.
Smouldering can then propagate through seams and into adjacent coal via conductive and convective heat transfer, and can persist for years. FIG – 2 shows the mechanism of coal field fire. Simplified overall equation of coal combustion causing fire is:
C100H74O11+113O2 = 100CO2+37H2O+4.2E8J/kmolO2
About 11.1 kg air is required for complete combustion of 1 kg coal.
In order to arrest spreading of fire, a map is to be made to show the temperature profile and gas composition measured through a number of boreholes, also showing surface fissures, subsidence, populated structures. Based on the map, identify the suspected high temperature zones, isolate the area, and seal the cracks and voids by grouting, and making cut-off trenches. Households in high-risk area are to be relocated. For long term control, low-permeability pockets in the danger zones are to be flooded with water, and for permeable seams inert gas injection may be done as per site condition.
Impact of coal mine fire
Environmental impact
The environmental pollution caused by coal mine fire due to release of huge amount of poisonous gases, and huge quantity of heat released to the atmosphere badly affects air, water, land, and daily life. The water quality in this area is very bad due to suspended matter, total dissolved solids including heavy metal compounds, due to leaching of sulphur compounds present in coal. Utilization of this water results in serious health hazard not only for human but also for local flora and fauna.
Typical Jharia levels of particulate matters in affected areas are 300-500 µg/m3 (CPCB norm – 100µg/m3), SO2 and oxides of N – about 150µg/m3 each (CPCB norm is about 80µg/m3 each). These pollutants cause severe respiratory and chronic lung diseases amongst the inhabitants. Respiratory illness of people living in the affected zone has been found to be 2-3 times higher than that of the affected areas. Already about 100,000 people were relocated under government scheme, and ~400, 000 remain at risk in subsidence zone.
Economic impact
Jharia mines fires cause danger to mining operations and destruction of substantial amounts of prime coking coal reserve loss leading to economic losses. About 37 million tons of metallurgical coal has been burnt to ashes. About 220 billion tons of coal has been locked due to coal fire, extraction of which is very difficult.
Total monetary loss on account of burnt coal and value of locked reserve is ~$220 billion. Besides these losses, huge amount of money has been spent to contain the fire and relocation of people in the affected areas. Government has allocated Rs. 5,940 crore in 2025 for rehabilitation and fire control that would add to the loss.
Infrastructure impact
As coal seams are burnt underground, the natural support to the super incumbent strata is lost and the upper strata cave in. Many surface infrastructures like rail roads, buildings, business units are under constant threat. Dhanbad-Jharia-Sindri via Patherdih railway line has been permanently closed. Due to subsidence of the terrain, 35-km Dhanbad-Chandrapura railway line, Dhanbad-Jharia-Sindri, Katras-Jharia-Bhuli railway routes passing through this area have been closed.
The routes of 7 numbers of Mail/Express trains were diverted to bypass the danger zone. Due to closure of these rail routes Indian railways continues losing Rs. 25 billion freight and Rs. 2.5 billion passenger fare. Moreover, coal has to be rerouted via longer corridors, increasing freight cost by ~ Rs. 250/tonne.
Areas affected
The entire sickle-shaped Jharia coalfield as shown in FIG – 3 covers roughly 450 square kilometres with nearly 19.4 gigatonnes of reserves, with the historically fire-impacted zone covering about 160 square kilometres. The most intense sub-surface and surface fires are found in Kusunda, Sijua, Katras, and Lodna areas, showing continuous burning with ground temperature around 200-4000C. Subsidence rates have been recorded at up to 20 cm/year in these critically affected areas.
Temperature profile & gas analysis
Coal field fires in Jharia region generally occurs in the uppermost coking coal seams around 30 metres to 100 metres below ground level. Borehole drilling in addition to remote sensing is also done to assess the conditions in the seams. Borehole data give site specific subsurface information to aid in mine planning, plotting fire perimeters, and the direction and rate of fire propagation. Borehole temperatures are measured by using chromel/alumel thermocouples that are lowered down a borehole. Gas composition is also measured to determine whether the mine is fire-affected or safe for mining.
To be continued…
Rathindra Nath Biswas is the Dy. General Manager, In-Charge (Retired), MECON, Durgapur.
