Page 440 - Advanced Mine Ventilation

Mine Sealing and Recovery 409

Figure 24.2 A hypothetical plot of major indices during fire and after sealing.

trained on the mine airways and escape airways in case the fire rekindles. Mitchell [1]
lists a set of “laws” for recovery work that is quite comprehensive and is noted here in
brief.

1. Rope off and guard all openings to the mine and surface buildings.
2. Restrict entry to the area.
3. Start the fans but maintain good communication with the command center.
4. Do not energize any electrical equipment in the mine except some pumps to dewater an area.
5. Create a resting place and provide plenty of food for all rescue-trained people.
6. Maintain a check-in and check-out list for all personnel engaged in the recovery work. Each
team should also keep a separate log on their workers.
7. All agencies in the command center should develop together a plan for recovery and agree on
it.
There are two ways to recover the sealed mine:
1. Reventilation of the mine.
2. Air locking (to recover in steps).

24.4.1 Reventilation

It is the preferred way if the fire is actually dead and there is no chance for rekindling.
There is a definite length of time that the fans need to run to clean the airways. Fans
should run at full capacity and mine airways should be monitored for gas composition
and all indices that indicate that there is no rekindling should be calculated to verify it.
The mine rescue teams walk every roadway from shaft bottom to the working faces
and back reporting on air composition, roof, and floor conditions. They may run into
some hot spots (small amount of coal still smoldering) that can be quickly extinguished
with water.