Post by Joanna on Sept 22, 2018 16:19:03 GMT -5
Fire Shoots from Mysterious Hole in Arkansas
MIDWAY, Ark. – It was an unusual call for the Midway Volunteer Fire Department. A volleyball-sized hole was burning, with flames shooting out of it off Highway 5 South. Fire Chief Don Tucker said, “A fire was burning roughly two feet in diameter, eight feet tall. And it burned for approximately 40 minutes.”
The homeowner who lives nearby said he came outside Monday morning to see flames shooting from the hole. He added that he had mowed the lawn recently and didn’t notice any kind of hole before the fire. Now county leaders are trying to figure out how the phenomenon started. “We don’t believe that the devil showed up, or the meteorites landed or the big booms happened,” quipped Baxter County Judge Mickey Pendergrass.
But the burning question is what caused the hole and the flames? “We have contacted every utility company that is in the area,” Pendergrass continued, “and we know for a fact now that they have lost no service. They have nothing there. So there’s nothing to do with utilities, which would be our first inclination to believe something was there.”
No one knows where the hole ends. A few geologists said they don’t believe it was caused by a meteorite or lightning strike. Ty Johnson of the Arkansas Geological Survey admitted how it started is a mystery, but he wants to dig for some possible answers. “I imagine you would have to do some serious excavation to find out the source of that,” he said. “We would be happy to go up there and look. I’ve already talked about going up there and looking at the area. There probably isn’t a lot we can tell, but we can get an idea of the general surroundings.”
“What ignited it and what fueled it, we still don't know,” Pendergrass added. “And it may remain forever a mystery.”
Source: KY3, September 18, 2018.
