Brennender Berg


The Brennender Berg is a natural monument located in a deep and narrow gorge between Dudweiler and Sulzbach in Saarland, Germany. It is a smouldering coal seam fire that ignited in 1668 and continues to burn today.

History

The exact cause of the fire is unknown today but it was probably a case of spontaneous combustion caused by pressure and decomposition as a result of unplanned coal mining. According to tradition, a shepherd lit a fire at a tree stump which propagated down through the roots to the coal seam. An unsuccessful attempt was made to fight the fire with water. It does not burn with an open flame but instead glows. Originally this glow could be seen through cracks in the rock and there was a considerable build-up of smoke. The fire began to weaken by the end of the 18th century. Depending on the weather, smoke is visible and in at least one of the rock crevices an outflow of warm air can be detected.

Tourism

The Brennender Berg is one of the region's places of interest. It is a popular destination for excursions and school trips. A convenient starting point is the parking lot of the Dudweiler cemetery at the end of Neuweiler Straße. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe also visited the Brennender Berg in 1770 and a commemorative plaque records the event. He later reminisced about this visit as follows:

Literature