Study on control of disastrous open fires in underground coalmines

Outbreak of open fires in coalmines is one of the major causes of disaster. To understand the complex phenomenon of open fires and to work out suitable fire suppression techniques, a mine fire model gallery is designed and constructed at Central Mining Research Institute, Dhanbad. The gallery is equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation system to monitor the important fire parameters. Three fire suppression techniques – liquid nitrogen, high-pressure high stability (HPHS) nitrogen foam, and water mist, were tried in three sets of experiments. It was observed that either HPHS nitrogen foam or water mist can be used to control the open fires. Despite control of open fires the water mist has other advantages, which can prevent the open fire to become disastrous