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Nasty Job. The first trenches will connect stripped-out areas and so make a perimeter beyond which the fire cannot spread. Then the draglines will work in ward, digging both burning and nonburn-ing coal from the whole 130 acres. Says Mining Engineer Robert W. Bell, consultant to the Carbondale Redevelopment Authority: "A nasty job—rather dangerous." While working on burning coal, the dragline operators will be only the length of their booms (60 to 90 ft.) away from the hot stuff. Each scoopful will be dumped on high ground and sprayed with water. In many places the hot surface will have to be covered with clay to keep truck tires from softening.
The job is expected to take at least three years. When it is finished, the site will be filled, graded and, if possible, reforested. Eventually some of it may become a park—a fitting monument to the city fathers who dumped combustible rubbish against a seam of coal.