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Proceedings of The 7th International Mine Ventilation Congress June 17-22, 2001, Cracow, Poland ISBN 83-913109-1-4 Chapter 117 THE HISTORICAL VERIFICATION OF THE USAGE OF NITROGEN IN MINE FIRES Alois Adamus Associate Professor, Institute of Safety Engineering VSB-Technical University Ostrava Ostrava-Poruba, Czech Republic ABSTRACT The use of nitrogen for fighting underground fires was based on the experience with the use of carbon dioxide. Many countries have used nitrogen successfully in their mining industry. For more then last 50 years, nitrogen has been used most widely in the mining industries of Czech Republic, later in France, Germany, Great Britain, Soviet Union and Bulgaria. An important role has been played by India, Poland, Slovakia, South Africa, USA, Australia, Romania and some other countries with a modern coal mining industry. The paper reviews historical information connected with the first use of nitrogen in several countries. Discussion dwells on the historical verification of the presented data. KEYWORDS Nitrogen, inertization, pure nitrogen, liquid nitrogen, nitrogen gas, underground fire, fighting fire, spontaneous heating, suppression of spontaneous heating, historical verification, deep mines, mining industry INTRODUCTION Probably the earliest recorded case of inertisation of the atmosphere in a deep mine was at the Clackmannan mine, about 7 miles from Stirling in Scotland in the 1850s as described by Walker (1908) and mentioned by Morris (1987). A mixture of steam, CO2, N2 and SO2 was made by forcing air through a coke furnace with a spray of water. That inertisation continued for more than three weeks until, after a month, the fire was extinguished. Many cases of inertisation before and after 1900 are described by Morris (1987) and Walters (1997). The first occasion when pure nitrogen was used for the inertisation of an underground fire was on the 8th of August 1949. This was at the Doubrava Mine