"These are man-made chemicals. As I always say, since nature did not make them, nature does not know how to break them," said Shubham Vyas, Associate Professor of Chemistry at the Colorado School of Mines.

Such fires can be ignited by lightning, humans and even spontaneously at temperatures as low as 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius), said Jurgen Brune, a Colorado School of Mines engineering professor.

All mine workings eventually subside, although it can be an extremely slow process — sometimes taking centuries, said Colorado School of Mines Professor Jurgen Brune, who teaches mine engineering.

Jordy Lee, program manager for the Supply Chain Transparency Initiative at the Payne Institute for Public Policy, and Morgan D. Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute and a professor of public policy, wrote this opinion piece.

“The way I sort of look at it is yes, there could be reasons to not develop some resources, but we probably have to be able to develop something,” says Ian Lange, an economics professor at the Colorado School of Mines who previously served on the ....

"Anything that you can use in space from those elements that are already there, it creates an advantage," said Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the center for space resources at Colorado School of Mines.

"There are certain conditions inside the coal that make the coal spontaneously combust," said Jurgen Brune, a professor in mining engineering at the Colorado School of Mines.

"The climate emergency is already here," 19-year-old Jeeva Senthilnathan, an engineering student at the Colorado School of Mines, told ABC News. "We're seeing the entire climate emergency in front of our eyes."

“There’s not much you can do from the outside to stop these fires because often the coal produces enough oxygen, in the coal bed itself, to keep those fires going,” said Jurgen Brune, a professor in mining engineering at the Colorado School of Mines ....