#peat fires

Pay the storms and the snow outside no mind. Let it be aflame on your breath. Let it burn. Let it smolder, sterilize. Antiseptic on your tongue.

Reach out to pour caramel and chocolate on charred oak. or douse a burning tire with vanilla. Pour it together and spread the feeling.

Or alone

if you’d rather, in your armchair by the window or the hearth where the heat of the peat fire warms your roots and reminds you of home.

In Anne Rice's world, vampires just rest under the earth and hibernate and emerge stronger. It's a good place to stay safe from fire. Every vampire in the books who was underground during Akasha's rampage in 1985 survived, and Lestat recovers from his burn injuries during his 20th century hibernation period.

However, in the real world, things can catch fire underground:

Zombie Fires; Holdover Fires

The British Columbian fire season is in full swing right now:

“Zombie fires” smouldering under the snowpack in Canada since last winter have ignited as the weather heats up, contributing to an intense start to the wildfire season in large parts of Canada, scientists and fire experts say.  Scientists are studying the rise of the phenomenon, also known as overwinter or holdover fires, where the soil catches alight during summer and burns extremely slowly underground during the subsequent winter.

A satellite image from Russia's Roscosmos Space Agency shows forest fires in Eastern Siberia, July 21, 2019. Roscosmos Space Agency via AP

Coal Seam Fires

Coal-seam fires can be divided into near-surface fires, in which seams extend to the surface and the oxygen required for their ignition comes from the atmosphere, and fires in deep underground mines, where the oxygen comes from ventilation.

lmao:

Many coalfields in the US are subject to spontaneous ignition. 

Fugging Pennyslvania is apparently the place with most coal seam fires in the US:

The Centralia Mine Fire

burning since 1962 when someone ignited the trash on top of the dump which was above the abandoned mine pit.

Depths of up to 300 feet (90 m) over an 8-mile (13 km) stretch of 3,700 acres (15 km).  

Could continue to burn for 250 years.

All real estate in the borough was claimed under eminent domain in 1992 and condemned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Centralia's ZIP Code was discontinued by the Postal Service in 2002.  State and local officials reached an agreement with the then seven remaining residents on October 29, 2013, allowing them to remain in Centralia until their deaths, after which the rights to their houses will be taken through eminent domain. As of 2020, only five residents remain.

If a vampire is smart they don't go into the earth in Australia or New Zealand.

Burning Mountain, New South Wales

Depth of 30 meters (100 feet)

Has been burning for ~6 millennia (six thousand years)

Oldest known coal fire

By Beruthiel at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., Public Domain,

Darvaza gas crater/Door to Hell or Gates of Hell, officially, the Shining of Karakum

Burning natural gas field that's collapsed into a crater in Darvaza, Turkmenistan.

Hundreds of natural gas fires light up the floor and rim of the crater.

Burning since 1971

Engineers ignited the crater to prevent poisonous gases from spreading

May be starting to burn out now

Peat fires not only release CO2, but other, more potent greenhouse gases such as methane, as well as particulate matter, "which is the stuff that gets into our lungs, it can cause respiratory disease and asthma attacks," said Turetsky.

A study published earlier this year in the journal Nature showed that peatlands in Canada are drying up and that fires will become more common in the future.

One recent example was the 2018 wildfire at Alkali Lake in B.C., which scorched the Tahltan Nation community of Telegraph Creek.

Chad Thomas, a member of the Tahltan First Nation and CEO of Yukon First Nations Wildfire, a group of Indigenous firefighters who have worked in Canada as well as overseas, said peat fires are trickier to handle than more conventional wildfires.

For one thing, unlike crown fires, which take place in trees, peat fires happen largely underground. Because the heat can become trapped many feet below the forest floor, peat fires can be "very hard to extinguish," Thomas said.

How Indonesia’s fires became one of the world’s biggest climate disasters

One of the worst eco-disasters on the planet is currently unfolding in Indonesia. Over the past two months, thousands of forest and peatland fires have been raging out of control, covering the entire region in thick, toxic haze and smoke. The fires have been a public health nightmare, forcing widespread evacuations, killing at least 19, and triggering respiratory illnesses in more than half a…