It is the oldest fire on the planet. It has been burning for at least six millennia, and some scientists estimate that it could be even older.
Wildfires typically last a few days, and have catastrophic effects. How can a fire last 6,000 years?
This mysterious fire is active in the Mountain of Flames or Mount wingen, in New South Wales (Australia).
It has been able to burn for 6,000 years because it is an underground fire. But the trail is easy to follow, because the smoke seeps out through the ground:
Is about a coal seam fire, which is maintained at about 30 meters deep, at a temperature of about 1,000 degrees CelsiusIt has a radius of only 5 or 10 meters.
It is a fire without flames. Basically they are burning embers, which make all the vegetation above it disappear, and causes a sulfurous smell in the environment, due to the rocks it burns. The ground is also hot when you touch it.
How do you know that This fire has been burning for six millennia?
It was discovered scientifically in 1828, but the natives of the place, the Wanaruah tribe, have known about it for centuries.
Since 1828 it has been proven that moves at a constant rate of just over 1 meter per year. Since the fire trail measures 6.5 kilometers (6,500 meters) it is estimated that at least 6,000 years burning. But it could be so much more.
And when will it be extinct? Will happen when the coal seam runs out, or when the oxygen runs out, whichever comes first.
Due to its age, there is no way of knowing how it originated. Many underground coal seam fires are known, but almost all have been caused by the miners when extracting the mineral. Some have lasted 50 or 60 years.
The legends of the Wanaruah speak of “a widow whose tears started the fire“or of”the torch of a warrior captured by the Evil One“. For them the mount wingen (What does it mean fire on their tongue) is sacred land. There they cook on the ground itself, and build tools with materials from the forest.
Scientists believe that the fire originated naturally. Either a fire caused by a lightning strike that caused some burning ash to reach the coal seam through a hole, or a part of the seam to rise to the surface and come on on a hot day, as he explains Science Alert.
A fire that started thousand years before the construction of the first Egyptian pyramid, when still writing had not been invented. It is the oldest active fire known.