The Alabama Department of Labor’s Abandoned Mine Land (AML) Reclamation Program is set to receive a prestigious national honor.

The U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) on Monday announced that Alabama’s AML reclamation program has won the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Small Project Award for reclamation work at the Marvel Gob Fire project in Bibb County.

The award will be presented during the annual conference of the National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 9.

An ongoing mine fire at Alabama’s old Marvel mines caused havoc in a small community with surface temperatures reaching as high as 930 degrees Fahrenheit on the surface. More than an acre of gob material was burning, generating noxious odors, smoke and fog.

However, Alabama’s AML program heroically put out the fire and then reclaimed the site in 50 working days. The project is considered small in scale by reclamation standards, but for people living nearby, this Yellowhammer State program solved a monumental community concern, the OSMRE explained in a release.

The Alabama Department of Labor is led by Secretary Fitzgerald Washington.

Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn