Almost two weeks ago a team of the Sys­sel­man­nen star­ted extin­gu­is­hing a sub­ter­ra­ne­an fire in Coles­buk­ta cau­sed by a camp fire. The fire was igni­ted at the foun­da­ti­on of a his­to­ri­cal buil­ding which is pro­tec­ted as a lis­ted monu­ment. In Coles­buk­ta seve­ral buil­dings from the time bet­ween 1913 and 1962 are pre­ser­ved. They ser­ved as a har­bor whe­re coal from the near­by Rus­si­an mining sett­le­ment Gru­mant­by­en was loa­ded. Both sett­le­ments are cul­tu­ral heri­ta­ges.

On Tues­day 13th of August the Sys­sel­man­nen was infor­med by tou­rists about the fire in Coles­buk­ta and a team was sent by heli­c­op­ter. The ori­gi­nal camp fire was alre­a­dy extin­gu­is­hed but it had initia­ted a smol­de­ring fire under the ground which was about to spread. First the Sysselmannen´s team pre­ven­ted the fire from spre­a­ding by dig­ging a trench and the cul­tu­ral heri­ta­ge could be saved.

As now, almost two weeks later on Tues­day 25th of August the Sys­sel­man­nen and the fire depart­ment exami­ned the place again, they noti­ced that the fire was still smol­de­ring. The fire figh­ters tried to extin­gu­ish it with foam and now they think about using a seve­ral meters long hose for pum­ping water from the coast to the fire area.

As it is pro­hi­bi­ted in Sval­bard to make a fire clo­se to cul­tu­ral heri­ta­ges, the Sys­sel­man­nen is inves­ti­ga­ting in this case. So far it is not known who made the camp fire. The Sys­sel­man­nen asks for infor­ma­ti­on, pre­fer­a­b­ly from the respon­si­ble per­sons them­sel­ves.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten