According to scientific reports, called the "Burning Mountain," this mysterious underground blaze has been burning for 6,000 years.
A ScienceAlert report specifically specified that in a national park of four-drive north of Sydney, Australia, fire is flaming uncontrollably, and it has been doing for approximately 6,000 years.
This underground fire is considered the oldest known fire on Earth, and some researchers have estimated it may be far more prehistoric than currently thought.
Situated Underneath Mount Wingen, which means "fire" in the local Wanaruah people's language, in the New South Wales state, this underground blaze is a coal seam fire, one of the thousands that burn at any one time all over the globe.
Once burned, such subterranean fires are nearly impossible to put out. Gradually though strongly, such fires are traveling through the coal seam, a coal layer that naturally takes place underneath the surface of Earth.
Fire Size Under Burning Mountain Remains Unknown
According to professor of fire science Guillermo Rein from Imperial College London in the United Kingdom, no one knows the fire's size under Burning Mountain; it can only be assumed.
The professor explained, it is likely a ball of roughly five to 10 meters in diameter, reaching temperatures of 1,832 Fahrenheit. He visited Burning Mountain in 2014, an activity on his "field trip bucket list."
Different from a usual fire, a coal seam fire is burning underground. It is smoldering, meaning there is no flame, and it is more like embers seen in a barbecue instead of a usual coal fire.
More so, it is not to be confused with more dramatic coal seam gas fires, known to set even on waterways on fire, ABC News reported.
Fire at Mount Wingen
At present, the fire at Mount Wingen is burning roughly 30 meters below the ground, not to mention moving south at a roughly 3.2-feet speed a year.
One who visits the National Park, welcome to all tourists, the only existing evidence of its presence is some white ash and smoke, ground that's warm to the touch, discolored rocks of red and yellow, and a sulfuric smell released as the fire underneath is cooking the mountain's minerals.
However, even though it is nearly invisible now, the path such a fire has taken is visible upon investigation, with more recently overcooked sites covered in ash and lack of plant life.
Rein explained that one sees this stunning eucalyptus forest ahead of the fire where it has not arrived. There the fire is currently unquestionably nothing living, not even grass.
Thousands of Years of the Burning Mountain
Where the fire was two to three decades ago, the forest has returned; although it is a different forest, the fire has formed the landscape.
Many coal seam fires, particularly those in India, China, and the US, are caused by human interference such as coal mining - think of the infamous fire below Centralia, Pennsylvania, the now-deserted town that inspired Silent Hill, which has been burning for almost 60 years.
As indicated in this report, that is a "mere blink of an eye" compared to the Burning Mountain's thousands of years.
Just one year when the first documented European detection in 1828, when local farmland announced he had discovered a volcano in the Mount Wingen region, Reverent CPN Wilton, a geologist, concluded the alleged volcano was certainly a coal seam fire.
A 'Sacred' Site
The first documented European sighting was in 1828 when a local farmhand declared he'd discovered a volcano in the Mount Wingen region.
Approximations have since found that the fire's path covers approximately 6.5 kilometers, hunting it has been alighted for at least 6,000 years. However, aside from that, hardly any official study has been carried out on the area.
The site is regarded as "sacred" by the Wanaruah people, traditional custodians, who used it for crafting weapons and cooking.
Their stories of origin talk about a widow with tears that sparked the fire or a warrior's torch captured by the so-called "Evil One" under the mountain. Rein explained, it is not just that it is 6,000 years old. It could be aged hundreds of thousands of years.
Information about the Burning Mountain is shown on Benny Craig's YouTube video below:
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