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Cause of super-heated ground found
Story By: Bill Folsom
Source: KOAA
Published Tue Jun 03, 2008, 05:02 PM MDT
Updated Wed Jun 04, 2008, 07:31 AM MDT
The mystery of what caused the ground at a Colorado Springs open space park to reach eight hundred degrees appears to have been solved. So hot, it burned through an eight year old boy’s shoes and sent him to the hospital with burns on his feet.
It happened when the boy went into the Rockrimmon open space near Golden Hills Park. He wandered into an area locals say has appeared blackened for years. Only this day the ground was astonishingly hot. Battalion Chief Kent Matthews with Colorado Springs Fire reports his crew getting surface temperature readings of eight hundred degrees.
Not knowing whether this was a surface issue, or something coming up from one of the many hidden old mines in the area, experts with the Colorado State Geological Survey were asked to help look into the problem.
What they found has a relatively simple solution according to Kurt Schroeder with Colorado Springs Parks, "What the state representatives indicated to us is that the coal spoil that's been on top of the ground for years and years reacts with the sun, heat of the sun and it spontaneously combusts.”
Because it's coal refuse likely dumped at this spot years ago, the recommendation from geologists is capping it. Crews will dump two feet of fill over the spot to keep the sun causing the coal remnants from igniting again.
