The Australian Coal Association Research Program-funded report by Cliff was released on Monday and it explores computer models to help evaluate risks and help design controls in relation to potential impacts from lightning strikes on underground coal mining.

“This project will provide a significantly improved level of knowledge and control over current lightning abatement techniques,” the report abstract said.

A lightning strike was blamed for causing West Virginia’s Sago underground coal mine disaster in 2006 which killed 13 miners, although no one saw such a strike take place.

A lightning strike on a bore hole was also suspected for triggering the Blakefield South goaf fire in early 2011 with one of the mine’s electricians saying a “close strike” shook the crib room during what was a “fairly severe lightning sort of storm”.

The report’s abstract noted that the events at Blakefield South and “more definitively at Sago” both suggested there was potential for lightning to cause ignition of methane-air atmospheres and cause damage to underground coal mines.

“A very detailed analysis carried out by as part of the MSHA investigation into the SAGO disaster by Sandia Laboratories identified at least ten other incidents over the past thirteen years where lightning had probably caused the ignition of a sealed goaf area of a mine,” the abstract said.

“Fortunately in those cases no lives were lost. The recent event at Blakefield South has suggested that there may be the potential for ignition to occur in an active longwall goaf.”

There were no lives or injuries sustained from the Blakefield South fire with this insured Upper Hunter Valley coal mine re-opening in mid-May 2012.

The report, titled “investigation of the potential lightning impacts on underground coal mines”, can be bought from the ACARP website.

Cliff is the director of the University of Queensland’s Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre.