Residents in the village of Carmacks, Yukon, living near the former Tantalus Butte coal mine say they want something done about coal fires burning underground.

Although the mine was abandoned in the late 1970s, coal seams have since been burning deep underground. Residents in the village complained that smoke and fire were escaping from up to six different adits, or mine entrances, this summer as fires burned closer to the mine's surface — up from two adits in previous years.

Carmacks, a village of 425 people, is located about 165 kilometres north of Whitehorse.
(CBC)

Residents living downhill from the site wonder if deadly gases, avalanches or mudslides could come from the mine.

"This particular mine has ventilation points. It's burning through to the surface all over the place and it's breathing all over the place," said Robert Moore, a civil engineer working for the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation.

"It could be very hard to put out. Very hard and very, very expensive."

Carmacks Mayor Elaine Wyatt said she's worried people may fall through openings into the mine shafts, and both she and the First Nation have asked for new signs and fences around the site.

"I think that they have put signage up over the years, but … from some of the photos I've seen, some of that signage has been destroyed by fires," Wyatt said. "And I don't think all of the roads have been really barricaded off, which maybe should happen."

Various companies ran the Tantalus Butte mine from 1923 until around 1978. The mine site was not one of the seven mines the federal government agreed to clean up during devolution talks with the Yukon government.

The Yukon government has already conducted an assessment of possible dangers at the site, and both governments plan to meet later this week to discuss how to address the issue.

Bob Holmes, the director of mineral resources with the Yukon's Energy, Mines and Resources Department, said the territorial government can still ask Ottawa to clean up the mine.

"There was that foresight that … not only sites we don't know about today, if we come across them, we can bring those forward to Canada if we discover them, but even sites we know about that weren't specifically identified in the agreement, we can still bring those forth."