I know of two other issues with fire related to cavers. There was a trip into Hidden River Cave Complex in Kentucky in the mid 80's when some cavers - I think Phi Odel and Duke Hopper were the trip leaders, when the ceiling of a crawlway caught on fire and blue flames were burning for about 100 feet along the ceiling. They quickly crawled out of the crawlway, some leaving their packs behind, and managed to escape with only minor injuries. The source of the flames turned out to be a leaking propane distribution tank on the surface.
The second event dates back to when folks used to use flames on their heads for light in caves. I think Don Coons and Sherri Engler were exploring a small pit in the Mammoth Cave area when they accidently set some leaf litter on fire on the surface before entering the cave. It probably smoldered and then finally caught on fire while they exploring the cave. When they went to exit the cave, the tree their cable ladder was rigged to was on fire along with about an acre of woods around the cave. They figure their carbide lamp probably set the blaze. They managed to get to the surface and put out the tree before their webbing melted and exit the area to call for firefighting assistance. I have also walked up to a cave in Kentucky that was out gassing gasoline from a leaking underground storage tank about a mile away. However, the explosimeter said the mixture was too rich to explode so we were safe. It was a large enough area that it would have made a very serious air/gas explosion had it caught on fire. We didn't hang around long. Geary From: Keith Goggin [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, June 11, 2010 10:05 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Re: Another Way to Die in a Cave Ha! Yeah, it only took one shot, but we were trying to get *all* the caves in the county mapped (and as far as I know we did!). I think we mapped at least two that were even shorter - although one of those actually has two entrances. ________________________________ From: Mark Minton <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, June 10, 2010 4:10:47 PM Subject: [Texascavers] Re: Another Way to Die in a Cave Keith, You mapped a 17-foot long cave?! Sounds like a candidate for Ediger's list of shortest caves. :-) Mark At 04:38 PM 6/10/2010, Keith Goggin wrote: >Wow! I mapped that little cave about 25 years ago when we published >the Roanoke County Cave Survey (that one was one of the smallest!). > >The matress was there then too. > >Keith > >From: Mark Minton <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> >To: Texascavers ><[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> >Sent: Thu, June 10, 2010 1:57:08 PM >Subject: [Texascavers] Another Way to Die in a Cave > > Here's another way to die in a cave: by > fire. <http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/249700> > >Mark Minton Please reply to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Permanent email address is [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
