DR. GLENN B. STRACHER
Professor of Geology
Department of Geology
East Georgia State College
Swainsboro, Georgia 30401

WILD FIRES

A NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC FILM AIRED ON TV

AROUND THE WORLD

Produced By Darlow-Smithson Productions Ltd, UK in Cooperation with

National Geographic and The Weather Channel

In June 2003, Darlow-Smithson Productions Ltd., winner of international and U.S. Emmy awards, produced a film for National Geographic and the Weather Channel at the famous Centralia Mine Fire in the anthracite region of eastern PA. The film includes a documentary about coal fires as part of a seven part National Geographic special series entitled "Built for Destruction." The coal-fires documentary has thus far played on TV in several countries.

Click on the links below for short and long versions of the filming process.

(a) National Geographic: Short Version

(b) National Geographic: Long Version

During filming, my former student, Dr. Tammy P. Taylor of Los Alamos National Lab, and I collected gas samples and coal-fire  gas by-products, took temperature and CO/CO₂ measurements, and recorded GPS coordinates. Our friends Tim, Pat and Melissa Nolter joined us for field work along with Dr. Daniel Vice of Penn State. Tim, Pat, Melissa, and Dan live near Centralia and are monitoring changes in the fire with time. They periodically collect condensation products and send them to me for analysis.

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