Mystery Ground Fire Update

You may recall an August item here about the underground fire discovered in a Southern California wilderness area last year. Monday morning the geologists involved presented their findings to the Geological Society of America, meeting in Salt Lake City this week. Their working hypothesis is spontaneous combustion by "the exothermic oxidation of iron sulfide minerals (pyrite and marcasite), which then burns disseminated organic material found in the local shale." The site is slowly cooling, which suggests to me that in a few years the particular fire hazard will dissipate. But the Transverse Range in this area is one of the world's most tectonically active regions, and this kind of fire is both likely and previously documented.