A Fire Older Than The Pyramids
Deep beneath a hill in New South Wales, a fire has been burning for at least 6,000 years. This is not a conventional fire with flames and smoke visible for kilometers. Instead, it is a coal seam fire, a slow, persistent combustion of bituminous coal buried 30 meters underground. The site, known as Mount Wingen, is the oldest known continuous coal fire in the world. "Wingen" is believed to mean "fire" in the language of the local Wanaruah people, who have known of the site for generations.
The fire is located within the Gunnedah Basin, a geological feature that contains extensive Permian-era coal deposits. The slow combustion process, starved of oxygen, advances through the coal seam at a rate of approximately one meter per year in a southerly direction. This relentless subterranean heat cooks the surrounding Jurassic-era Pilliga sandstone and claystone. The ground above the fire is hot, barren, and fissured, releasing sulphurous fumes that give the area a distinct smell. When European settlers first encountered the smoking vents in 1828, they mistook it for an active volcano. It was geologist Reverend C.P.N. Wilton who correctly identified it as a coal seam fire in 1829.