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Scribol.com has a photo spread documenting a descent into into the crater known as the Door to Hell. Supposedly this was the first time any person has attempted to reach the bottom of the crater. The crater has a diameter of 70 metres (230 ft) and a depth of about 20 metres (66 ft). Natural gas vents through the sides and bottom of the crater continuously, creating a fire pit with unstable sides.
[Wikipedia] says the crater, located in Ahal Province, Turkmenistan, was created by Russian oil and gas drillers when they accidentally drilled into an underground void, which then collapsed, and continued to vent gas. It was allegedly intentionally set on fire to burn off the gas.**
That was in 1971. The crater has been burning ever since.
**(Locals insist the crater was there before the Soviets arrived, and the only thing the drillers added was the fire).
The extensive photos on the Scribol site document an attempt to reach the bottom of the crater to sample for extremophiles.. That effort was part of a 2013 National Geographic television special. A two minute video clip of this program is available which gives a good sense of the size of the crater.
[Ed. addition] Notable quotation from the scribol story:
"Now I had two alarms going off and I was starting to overheat," the adventurer continues. "The crew started to haul me up on the ropes, and all I could do was just try to relax and slow my breathing down. But trying to relax while dangling over fire with a low-air alarm going off is not a simple task."
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Monday April 20 2015, @02:53PM
If one puts it out I guess one would be back to having poisonous gas seeping out (but that might not be a problem any more) which could easily reignite in the same place or somewhere else. Lots of things one could try if one had the money and a willingness to accept (maybe multiple) failure(s) and/or maybe end up creating more burning craters.
Wikipedia also has good articles about coal seam fires [wikipedia.org] and peat fires [wikipedia.org] which are hard or “impossible” to put out. There's a lot of those all across the world. There's also oil well fires [wikipedia.org] with the most famous examples being the 6 or 7 hundred wells set aflame [wikipedia.org] in Kuwait by Saddam in 1991 (wow that's 24 years ago now). Later those were put out by US companies.
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