An 8-year-old boy out walking with family members in Colorado Springs severely burned part of his foot on an underground patch of burning coal dust that had heated the ground to 800 degrees Fahrenheit.
The boy, whose name was not released, suffered second-degree burns as the fire melted his Crocs shoe. He was treated Monday by paramedics with morphine, said Sandy Friedman, a spokesman with the Colorado Springs Fire Department.
Firefighters and others, including staff with the Colorado Geological Survey, responded to the city-owned park area in the Rockrimmon section and used a thermal-imaging device to measure 800-degree heat radiating from the patch.
The fine “coal spoil” dust may have been discarded from a nearby mine decades ago and has mixed with soil and vegetation over the years. It appears to have spontaneously caught fire, said Al Amundson, an engineer with the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety.
“The coal is always oxidizing, and when there is one more degree of heat than is carried away by the wind, it will burst into flames,” he said.
There have been previous coal pile fires in Glenwood Springs and the Walsenburg-Trinidad area. What is puzzling, Amundson said, is why the coal dust, apparently enough to fill two or three dump trucks, was dumped on a 30-foot-by-50-foot swath in the field.
The shaft of the Pikeview Mine, which operated until 1956, is about a quarter of a mile from the field.
“Usually they’d dump waste close to the shaft,” Amundson said.
Responders roped off the area, near Rockrimmon Boulevard and Delmonico Drive, and firefighters repeatedly doused the hot spot with water overnight, Friedman said, bringing the patch down to 250 degrees.
Fire officials went through the neighborhood Monday alerting businesses and homeowners. Some townhomes are within 70 feet of the patch, which sits in a field of scrub and brush.
Friedman said officials planned to cover the spot with about 3 feet of topsoil.
The boy was taken Monday to Memorial Health System Central. Further details on his condition were not available.
The boy was wearing Crocs, and the sole of one shoe melted down to a fabric mesh, Friedman said.
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com
