The Loveridge mine near Fairview, Marion County, USA was evacuated last week as workers attempt to extinguish the second coal seam fire to hit the mine in the last four years.

The fire started in the sloped bottom of a service tunnel used to transport supplies and convey coal. Initial attempts to control the fire in the tunnel were abandoned and the company ordered the mine evacuated. This is because of the propensity of the Pittsburgh coal seam to release methane.

All the openings to the mine are being temporarily sealed to cut off the supply of oxygen to the fire

In June 1999, a coal seam in Loveridge caught fire when a work crew was doing repairs while the mine was idle. The mine remained closed for two years. Then, after producing more than a million tons of coal for the first time since the 1999 fire, the mine was idled last summer so crews could shift the longwall miner to a new area. Crews were preparing the new longwall area when the fire broke out.

Meanwhile, The Charleston Gazette reported on the weekend that federal records showed the mine had been cited several times in January for safety violations related to fire prevention or control. Specifically these related to improper inspection of fire suppression devices.

During that period, the Loveridge operation was also cited twice for ventilation plan violations and twice for unsafe accumulations of combustible materials, MSHA records show.

The year has not started well for the big mining company. Three contractors were killed in January in an explosion while they were digging a new ventilation shaft at the McElroy Mine near Moundsville. Earlier in the month a major fire at Mine 84 in western Pennsylvania broke out.