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Fire
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Simulation, Experiment and Modeling of Coal Fires (2nd Edition)
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Simulation, Experiment and Modeling of Coal Fires (2nd Edition)

A special issue of Fire (ISSN 2571-6255).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2026 | Viewed by 1286

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Wei Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Emergency Management and Safety Engineering, China University of Mining & Technology, Beijing, China
Interests: mine safety engineering; underground space fire and thermal environment control; mine fire and gas prevention; safety input indicators and accurate use
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Zeyang Song

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Safety Science and Engineering, Xi'an University of Science and Technology, Xi’an 710018, China
Interests: underground coal fire; artificial intelligence and application; satellite remote sensing; chemical process safety; self-sustaining smoldering of waste
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Bobo Shi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Emergency Management and Safety Engineering, China University of Mining & Technology, Beijing, China
Interests: coal fire prevention and thermal energy utilization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Caiping Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Safety Science and Engineering, Xi’an University of Science and Technology, Xi’an 710054, China
Interests: mine safety engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Coal fires are a global environmental catastrophe and are also severe disasters in the mining industry. They not only burn a large amount of coal resources, causing environmental disasters such as ground subsidence and air pollution, but also often induce secondary disasters such as gas/dust explosions, seriously threatening life and safe production. Coal fires, mainly initialized by the spontaneous combustion of coal, are characterized by concealed fire sources, easy reignition, dynamic movement, and complex air leakage channels. It is a challenging task to locate underground fire sources, and to actively prevent and control this hazard. One of the biggest obstacles results from the fact that coal fires are a complicated dynamic process coupled by chemical reaction, heat and mass transfer, as well as rock/soil mechanics. Therefore, it is important to investigate how coal ignites and coal fire spreads widely and persistently underground using experimental, numerical, and modelling approaches.

This Special Issue aims to reveal the disaster-causing mechanism of coal fires from the perspective of simulation, experimentation and modeling, to elucidate the spatio-temporal evolution process of the occurrence and development of underground coal fires, and to provide a theoretical basis for the accurate prevention and control of coal fires. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  1. Mechanism of coal fires/spontaneous combustion;
  2. Early warning method of coal fires/spontaneous combustion;
  3. Judgment theory of multi-information fusion in dangerous areas;
  4. Prevention and control technology of coal fires/spontaneous combustion;
  5. Extraction and utilization of thermal energy from underground coal fires.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Wei Liu
Dr. Zeyang Song
Dr. Bobo Shi
Dr. Caiping Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fire is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • coal spontaneous combustion
  • self-heating of coal
  • smoldering coal fires
  • coal-fire propagation
  • fire prevention material
  • monitoring and early warning
  • coal fire prevention
  • coal mine safety
  • thermal energy extraction and utilization
 

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 3585 KB  
Article
Prediction of Spontaneous Combustion Three-Zone Distribution in Gobs During the Terminal Mining Phase Based on WOA-BP Model
by Pengyu Wen, Wei Liu, Shiyang Peng and Ruilin Li
Fire 2025, 8(10), 396; https://doi.org/10.3390/fire8100396 - 12 Oct 2025
Viewed by 396
Abstract
During the terminal mining phase of in gobs, the advancing rate slows gradually, and the distribution of spontaneous combustion three-zone in gobs undergoes significant changes, yet there remains a lack of simple and effective prediction methods. To address this issue, the oxygen concentration [...] Read more.
During the terminal mining phase of in gobs, the advancing rate slows gradually, and the distribution of spontaneous combustion three-zone in gobs undergoes significant changes, yet there remains a lack of simple and effective prediction methods. To address this issue, the oxygen concentration distribution and temperature distribution data on both intake-side and return-side at longwall advancing rates of 2 m/d, 1.2 m/d, and 0.6 m/d were obtained through on-site monitoring. A generative adversarial network was employed to learn from measured data, generating additional usable data to build the dataset. Mining status parameters, oxygen concentration distribution, and temperature distribution were extracted as input variables. Whale optimization algorithm-back propagation model was proposed, establishing nonlinear mapping relationships between advancing rate and initiation depth of oxidation zone/asphyxiation zone. The results demonstrate that (i) the WOA-BP model can effectively predict distribution of spontaneous combustion three-zone during terminal mining phase, significantly improving prediction accuracy compared with BP and AdaBoost-BP; (ii) by SHAP feature analysis, contribution of advancing rate is the highest, which can provide reliable predictive performance; (iii) the slower the advancing rate, the closer the oxidation zone and the asphyxiation zone will be to working surface. This provides a foundational direction for preventing spontaneous combustion in gobs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Simulation, Experiment and Modeling of Coal Fires (2nd Edition))
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15 pages, 3041 KB  
Article
A Study on Dangerous Areas for Coal Spontaneous Combustion in Composite Goafs in Goaf-Side Entry Retaining in the Lower Layer of an Extra-Thick Coal Seam
by Ningfang Yue, Lei Wang, Jun Guo, Yin Liu, Changming Chen and Bo Gao
Fire 2025, 8(8), 298; https://doi.org/10.3390/fire8080298 - 28 Jul 2025
Viewed by 670
Abstract
Taking a composite goaf in goaf-side entry retaining as our research focus, a kilogram-level spontaneous combustion experiment was carried out, and limit parameters for coal spontaneous combustion characteristics were assessed. Combined with the key parameters of the site, a numerical model of a [...] Read more.
Taking a composite goaf in goaf-side entry retaining as our research focus, a kilogram-level spontaneous combustion experiment was carried out, and limit parameters for coal spontaneous combustion characteristics were assessed. Combined with the key parameters of the site, a numerical model of a multi-area composite goaf was constructed, and the distribution features of the dangerous area for coal spontaneous combustion in the lower layer of in goaf-side entry retaining were determined by means of the upper and lower layer composite superposition division method. The results show that at a floating coal thickness in the goaf of 1.9 m, the lower limit of oxygen concentration Cmin, upper limit of air leakage intensity, and corresponding seepage velocity are 6%, 0.282 cm−3·s−1·cm−2, and 11.28 × 10−3 m/s respectively. The dangerous area regarding residual coal on the intake side is 23~38 m away from the working face, while that on the return air side is concentrated amid the goaf at 23~75 m, and that on the flexible formwork wall is concentrated at 0~121 m. The research results are of crucial practical importance for the prevention and control of coal spontaneous combustion within a composite goaf. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Simulation, Experiment and Modeling of Coal Fires (2nd Edition))
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