DGMS(Tech)(S&T)Circular No. 3 of 2001                                                              Dhanbad, dated the 20^th June, 2001.

 

To

All Owner, Agent & Managers of Coal Mines.

 

 

Sub: Dealing of fire in open cast coal mines.

 

 

In the recent past, in one opencast coal mine while a 20m³ bucket capacity shovel was excavating burning coal from the bottom of a coal bench, 15m in height and two persons were in the process of fighting the coal fire with water jet standing 10m away from the face on the floor of the bench, burning coal slid from top of the bench engulfing the fire fighters in hot coal, ash and stem. One person could escape with burn injuries but one other person unfortunately received 60% burns and succumbed to his injuries later.

 

In another case, while a shovel was deployed at the bottom of a coal bench on fire in a quarry, fall of side occurred forming thick cloud of hot dust. A shovel operator and a overman got trapped and received serious burn injuries to which the shovel operation succumbed later.

 

Other similar cases have also come to the notice of this Directorate where no persons were involved. In all these cases it could be observed that the system established for fire fighting was directing water jets on the fire standing away from the face on the bottom of the b4nch. Some of the shortcomings of such systems were,

 

1.               the distance at which the fire fighters were positioned from the face was less than the height of the bench/face or the persons dealing such fires were positioned at an unsafe distance from the burning coal face;

2.               no personal protective equipment like protective clothing for dealing fire were provided to the persons employ4ed for fire fighting;

3.               there was no established system, i.e. code-of-practice was not framed to deal with such; situations;

 

In all these cases, the system itself was fraught with danger and circumstances were created at the work place where the accidents were waiting to occur.

 

In this context, attention is also drawn to regulation 119(2)(b) of CMR 1957 which requires adequate precautions to be taken to prevent danger to persons from flame, steam and ejected or rolling down hot material, explosion of water gas, etc. among other things.

 

Considering that establishment of a good system of fire fighting in opencast coal mines could and may save valuable life of workers, all coal mines with opencast workings where danger of fire exists should frame a comprehensive plan for fighting fire in the workings. Such mines should also frame site specific code-of-practice for fire fighting under different circumstances in the mine. The code-of-practice may include interalia the following,

 

a.                the process of dealing different types of fires under different circumstances at the mine in a manner which is safe,

b.               responsibility of all concerned persons starting from the workers at grass root levels to supervisors, managers and higher management levels at the mine and of the company,

c.               outline of the training needs of various concerned persons,

d.               details of appropriate personal protective equipment for fire fighting.

 

I am sure that appropriate steps taken as detailed above would go a long way in preventing accidents from dealing fire in opencast coal mines.

 

 

 

Chief Inspector of Mines.