Investigators: Burning Remnants Of Underground Coal Mines Are Possible Cause Of Marshall Fire

By Logan Smith, CBS Denver:

BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) — Investigators with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office are considering a number of possible causes of the Marshall Fire, a grass fire which was propelled by 100-mph winds into southern Boulder County subdivisions and which quickly became the state’s costliest wildfire in terms of homes destroyed.

A new possibility emerged late last week – that the remains of turn-of-the-century coal mines which have been slowly burning underground for decades may have reached the soil surface during the Dec. 30 windstorm and ignited the destructive blaze.

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