Fire disasters

Underground or surface fires, including spontaneous combustion.

See all disasters, including type and year filtering.

5 disasters.

• Magpie Mine suffocation of three Maypitt miners
  1833 · Gas / Asphyxiation · Derbyshire · 3 fatalities
  Three miners from the neighbouring Maypitt mine suffocated after Magpie miners lit fires underground to smoke them out during a dispute over a shared lead vein — the origin of the mine's 'Widow's Curse' story.
• Chatterley Whitfield (Whitfield) Colliery explosion
  7 February 1881 · Explosion · Staffordshire
  A smithy fire spread through the ventilation flue and ignited gas underground, and further explosions followed when ventilation was cut to fight the fire — sources give the final death toll as anywhere from 21 to 28.
• Snaefell Mine disaster
  10 May 1897 · Gas / Asphyxiation · Isle of Man
  Timber left smouldering underground filled the mine's shafts with carbon monoxide; miners descending on the morning shift were overwhelmed before they realised the danger. Sources give the death toll as 19-23.
• Big Pit fire (1913)
  7 April 1913 · Fire · Torfaen · 3 fatalities
  Three men died in a fire near the underground stables while trying to rescue the pit ponies stabled there; the horses survived.
• Greenside Mine fire, 1952
  7 July 1952 · Fire · Cumbria · 4 fatalities
  A fire that broke out over a weekend in the North Shaft workings released carbon monoxide through the mine when the day shift restarted the air compressor, killing four miners — the worst single loss of life in Greenside's history.