Coal seam spontaneous combustion fire is not only one of the main forms of the five major mine disasters, but also the main cause of secondary disasters such as mine gas and coal dust explosions. In recent years, with the advancement of mechanization, automation, and intelligent mine construction, spontaneous coal fires in mines have presented a series of new characteristics, and the prevention and control of spontaneous coal fires are also facing new challenges. On the basis of literature research, this paper summarizes and discusses the basic theory of coal spontaneous combustion, monitoring and early warning methods, and prevention and control technology, summarizes the development process of coal spontaneous combustion theory, reviews the research progress of coal spontaneous combustion monitoring and early warning methods and prevention and control technologies, and discusses the future development direction. In terms of the basic theory of spontaneous combustion of coal, from the initial hypothesis of spontaneous combustion of multielement coal to the unified understanding of coal-oxygen composite theory, a complete set of theoretical systems have been established, and a lot of macro and micro studies have been carried out and analyzed from multiple perspectives. In terms of coal spontaneous combustion monitoring and early warning, from the initial single indicator gas early warning to the construction of gas index system, the hierarchical early warning system is studied, and gradually tends to be perfect. With the development of automation and intelligence technology, the monitoring of coal spontaneous combustion disasters has also formed a new monitoring technology with beam tube monitoring as the traditional method, distributed optical fiber, wireless AD hoc network temperature measurement, and a coal spontaneous combustion multiparameter wireless monitoring system. In terms of fire prevention and control, the traditional "prevention" and "treatment" have changed to the "prevention-control-extinction" technical system based on hierarchical early warning, and the focus has gradually shifted to "prevention", and a large number of antifire materials have been developed, including blocking materials and fire-fighting materials. However, the precise inhibition and control of coal spontaneous combustion disasters, the evolution model of coal spontaneous combustion under the conditions of multifactor coupling in the field, the reliability and stability of intelligent monitoring system, the noncontact detection method of fire source, and the collaborative adaptation of multiple prevention and control techniques are not yet clear. In the future development, the mechanism of spontaneous coal combustion and its evolution process and other basic theories should be deeply studied. On the basis of the mechanism optimization early warning method of spontaneous coal combustion process, flame retardant and fire prevention materials should be targeted and developed. On the basis of the spatiotemporal evolution of spontaneous coal combustion, monitoring and monitoring system equipment with high speed, high precision, and high stability should be developed, which should accelerate the realization of accurate dynamic sensing and intelligent early warning of coal spontaneous combustion, and form an active hierarchical collaborative prevention and control system based on the trinity of "prevention-control-extinction" of coal spontaneous combustion. The conclusions and prospects of this paper can be used for reference in the future research direction, and have a certain role in promoting the exchange of research results of coal science and technology workers.

Fire extinguishing with the superior performance of fly ash composite colloid material is a cost‐effective colloid fire prevention technology. In this paper, a new powder additive (suspending agent (XK‐XJ) and gelling agent) was developed for the existing fire extinguishing technology of fly ash compound colloid. Tests show that the best additions to the fly ash slurry were 0.3% and 0.1∼0.3%, respectively. The grouting technical scheme of adding a suspending agent on the ground and gelling agent downhole was proposed to solve the problems of solid material settlement and blockage in the long‐distance pipeline transportation process. Finally, the optimized fly ash colloid fire prevention and extinguishing technology was successfully applied to the fire control engineering examples of close‐range coal seam groups, and the rationality of the developed powder and its proportion was tested, and the feasibility in coal fire control was tested.

Data in this article presents the characteristic parameters of spontaneous combustion of coal with different ranks, including lignite, long flame coal, and anthracite. The coal samples were tested by the temperature programmed method. The gas concentration data produced at different temperature points during the heating process are obtained. Through monitoring the spontaneous combustion of coal in a coal mine, the field data in goaf are obtained. Through processing on the data from the experiment and field, three gas indices were obtained, which include CO/CO2, Graham value and Alkane ratio. The data is made available for further use and for furthering the understanding of the key findings of the related research, such as the early warning for spontaneous combustion of coal. For more insight please see A method for evaluating the spontaneous combustion of coal by monitoring various gases (Guo et al., 2019).

High-temperature poisonous smoke produced by coal mine roadway fire seriously affects miners' lives and safety. Studying the development law of high-temperature smoke in the process of mine roadway fire and then exploring the danger of roadway are of great significance to personnel safety and post-disaster rescue. In order to study this problem, the CFD numerical simulation method is used to establish a fire calculation model based on ANSYS Fluent software in the development stage of mine fire. The high-temperature flue gas flow in the roadway during the development stage of mine fire is simulated, and the variation law of temperature field and gas concentration field with time and space position under different levels of roadway in the development stage of fire is revealed. The variation rules of environmental parameters, such as temperature, CO, and CO₂, are obtained by numerical calculation. Based on these, the danger zones of smoke spread in fire development stage are divided by the critical values of high-temperature smoke and toxicity evaluation index, and the mathematical fitting analysis of the evolution of the dangerous area with time is carried out. The research results have certain theoretical guiding significance for reducing underground environmental pollution and ensuring the personal safety of workers and rescuers.