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A handful of natural fires have burned for thousands of years and show no sign of stopping. The longest known is Australia’s Burning Mountain (Mount Wingen), a coal-seam fire alight for at least 6,000 years. Canada’s Smoking Hills have smoldered for 7,000 to 10,000 years, and Azerbaijan’s Yanar Dag is a famous gas-fed eternal flame.
When we think of fire, we likely imagine a hot, burning mass of heat and light with the power to lap up or incinerate anything in its way. The beauty of these glowing flames is in their inevitable demise, as they lose their power once extinguished. Homo sapiens in the Early Stone Age would have thanked their stars if the fire they accidentally discovered lasted forever, and the Human Torch would be pretty much indestructible.
However, it turns out that there are some fires that have been burning for thousands of years and continue to do so, no matter what storms or precipitation Mother Nature may throw at them.
A fire needs three things to stay alive: oxygen, fuel, and a source of heat (the so-called fire triangle). If none of these three runs out, it is theoretically possible for a fire to burn forever. We see glimpses of this in long-burning wildfires, where expansive forests act as unlimited fuel sources, making it practically impossible to put out these fires.
Here we look at a few such fires that have come to play essential parts in cultural and religious histories, and are also considered popular tourist attractions (thanks, capitalism).
1. Yanar Dag (Fire Mountain)
The country of Azerbaijan has earned itself the moniker of the ‘Land of Fire’ over the years, owing to the spontaneous fires that can pop up in different places across its mountains and seas; even the state emblem features red tongues of flame in the center. Azerbaijan is also known to be the birthplace of Zoroastrianism, one of the oldest religions in the world, and one centered around a sacred belief in fire.
The phenomenon of these natural fires, aside from being an element of amazement, occurs due to the country’s plentiful gas reserves. Most of these fires eventually burn out due to the depletion of these resources and tectonic shifts, but the fire at Yanar Dag is one of the most miraculous fires still burning to this day. The flames rise up to 3 meters (about 10 feet) along the hillside and continue to burn even in winter, as the falling snow never reaches the ground.
Venetian explorer Marco Polo wrote of the region’s mysterious flames when he passed through on his way to Baku in the 13th century, and Silk Road merchants helped spread the legend that earned Azerbaijan its “Land of Fire” name. The Yanar Dag flame as we know it today is younger than that, however: according to local accounts, this particular fire was accidentally lit in the 1950s and has burned without interruption ever since, forming a wall of flame along the edge of the hillside. It is now a top-rated tourist attraction protected by the State Historical, Cultural, and Natural Reserve.
2. Burning Mountain
Eastern Australia is abundant in the components needed to sustain fires: the fuel comes in the form of excessively dry vegetation, caused by the weather conditions, while the heat source is typically lightning or human causes. Although most regions of Australia experience such fires, the eastern and southern coasts, where most of the population reside, are notorious for having the most fires in the country.
The most infamous of these is one of the world’s longest-burning fires, which has been lit for the past 6,000 years, under the coal seam in Mount Wingen, a hill in New South Wales. The word ‘Wingen’ itself comes from the language of the local Wonnarua (Wanaruah) Aboriginal people and means “fire”.
The exact cause of the fire is unknown, but scientists suggest that it could be due to a lightning strike on the seam. These coals don’t have flames like a usual fire, but glow with heat at a temperature of roughly 1,000 degrees Celsius (around 1,800 °F), some 30 meters (about 100 feet) under the surface. The burning front is only about 5 to 10 meters wide and creeps southward at roughly a meter a year, leaving a scorched, barren scar in its wake. Vents in the surface let smoke and a sulfurous smell escape. The Burning Mountain Nature Reserve is covered with forest, except along this slow-moving coal seam.
The exact age of the embers is not known, but 6,000 years is considered a low-end probability. It’s possible that it could have been burning for a hundred thousand years or more, and could continue to burn for thousands more.
3. Smoking Hills
These hills lining the coastline at Cape Bathurst, in Canada’s Northwest Territories, have been described as “hellish looking,” and with good reason. Even though the area is remote and rarely visited, the hills have been smoldering for roughly 7,000 to 10,000 years (likely since the glaciers retreated) and feature in the legends of the Inuvialuit, who believed the smoke rose from the campfires of people living underground.
The first recorded sighting was made in the 1850s by Irish-born explorer Captain Robert McClure, whose crew aboard HMS Investigator was searching the Arctic for the lost Franklin expedition. It is said that he brought a sample of the smoldering rock back to the ship, but it was so hot that it burned a hole clean through his desk.
The appearance of this place makes it look even scarier. The mountain is surrounded by the remote Arctic Tundra, an area mostly untouched by human populations, but the size of the hills is a stark contrast. Unlike the gas and coal fires elsewhere on this list, the Smoking Hills aren’t really a fire at all in the usual sense. The cliffs are made of oil-rich shale packed with pyrite (iron sulfide); where erosion exposes it to air and moisture, the pyrite oxidizes and releases enough heat to spontaneously ignite the shale, no spark required. The ground is black and covered in deep mud that releases a strong smell of hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide and billows smoke from vents. The air can be acidic enough to sting your eyes and throat, and even sturdy boots will start to melt if you spend too long on this volatile ground.
A Final Word
Such eternal flames are rare, although there are a few other such places across the globe, all of which hold a place of reverence for different religions, cultures, and folklore traditions. They each exist for different reasons, but they remain beautiful feats of nature that have held us in awe for centuries, along with a good amount of intrigue, mystery, and a healthy dose of fear!
