Making Synapses · Bringing Knowledge to Mankind
Mining & ExplosivesChanging the ventilation only when the effect is known
Moving the air can save the trapped miners or push a deadly or explosive mixture over them. The team never starts, stops, alters or redirects the air current without knowing the full effect, and always tells the official in charge first. Doors, regulators and stoppings get temporary controls before anyone opens them.
Free to startScenarios
- Clearing smoke and gas from the front of a barricade.
- An impassable fall: the team breaks a stopping to reach the area.
- A fire out of control, with intense heat.
The steps
- Before any change, know where the air will go and tell the official in charge, through the fresh air base attendant.
- Before opening a door, build a temporary stopping; before opening a regulator, build a temporary regulator.
- To break a stopping, erect a temporary stopping that has the same effect on the area as the original one.
- Turn an existing check curtain into a temporary stopping, fastened at the top and sides, before using it to direct the air.
- Build controls straight across the entry or diagonally from safe corner to safe corner; past 10 feet, add a second brattice frame and curtain.
- Never use blankets or other porous material as curtains.
- Send all the airflow from its source to one opening when clearing a barricade or airtight structure.
- Wait for the placards to change; if they have not changed after 15 seconds, the change did not work.
- Recheck every cleared area before going back in.
- With a fire out of control or intense heat, seal or regulate it without undue delay, then find every other approach to it and seal or regulate those too.
Safety rules that stop the station
- Never move an explosive mixture over an ignition source or through an unexplored area.
- Never direct an IDLH atmosphere over survivors, or through an unexplored area while miners are unaccounted for.
To pass
- Changing ventilation or power before knowing the effect costs 15 points; a missing temporary stopping or regulator 10; one not reasonably airtight 2.
- Moving an explosive mixture over an ignition source or an unexplored area endangers the whole team: 75 points.
- Not sealing or putting out a fire without undue delay, when possible, costs 50.
Official source
Federal · MSHA Mine Rescue Contest Rules 2026
2026 Metal and Nonmetal Mine Rescue Contest Rules
MSHA's mine rescue contest rules set how teams change ventilation, build temporary controls and handle mine fires, and the discounts.
Making Synapses is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by MSHA, NASA or any mine rescue association. Agency names are named only to describe the content.