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Turkmenistan's leader wants 'Gates of Hell' fire put out:
The president of Turkmenistan is calling for an end to one of the country's most notable but infernal sights — the blazing natural gas crater widely referred to as the "Gates of Hell."
The desert crater located about 260 kilometers (160 miles) north of the capital, Ashgabat, has burned for decades and is a popular sight for the small number of tourists who come to Turkmenistan, a country which is difficult to enter.
The Turkmen news site Turkmenportal said a 1971 gas-drilling collapse formed the crater, which is about 60 meters (190 feet) in diameter and 20 meters (70 feet) deep. To prevent the spread of gas, geologists set a fire, expecting the gas to burn off in a few weeks.
[...] The spectacular if unwelcome fire that has burned ever since is so renowned that state TV showed President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov speeding around it in an off-road truck in 2019.
But Berdymukhamedov has ordered his government to look for ways to put the fire out because it is causing ecological damage and affecting the health of people living in the area, state newspaper Neitralny Turkmenistan reported Saturday.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 11 2022, @04:28AM
It's a big flaming hole, it's presumably *already* filled in with dirt. But air (or gas) can pass through all the tiny gaps in the dirt fairly easily, allowing flames to burn on the surface (see: every sand-, gravel-, or crushed-glass filled novelty gas fireplace).
Natural gas only stays in the ground if it gets trapped under large domes of unbroken stone. And once we punch a hole through that stone - usually to get at the oil that also gets trapped underneath, then the gas will flow up and out unless the hole is patched with something non-permeable. And that rock dome tends to be pretty deep underground, meaning that to stop the leak in a collapsed well you'll have to first dig all the way down to it so that it can be patched. Without creating any sparks that could start the fire going again.