Texas based U.S. Foam Technologies used technology called the “Hellfighter System” to bring the fire under control. This system features a foam solution that is mixed with water and pumped into a mine under high pressure. The "Foam Solution" that was pumped into the mine comprises a proprietary formula of polymerized product into which an inert gas is injected. The formula was designed in 1999 for the coal mine industry, but it had not been used formally on an active mine fire until 2002 said U.S. Foam Technologies chief executive officer Alden Ozment.

“Technically it is not a foam at all but rather a very durable long lasting product. The coal mine operators reported that two weeks after the fire, they encountered a ‘massive’ amount of foam product in a lower mineshaft. It was four to six feet deep in places. Two weeks! This is amazing even to me. That situation confirms our research,” Ozment said.

Ozment said the extinguishment was the first of its kind in the history of Coal Mine Firefighting (according to industry manual “Coal Fires,” published 1996).

Ozment said the manual states that "high expansion foam has not yet extinguished a real mine fire." He said is no longer true because his company used foam to extinguish the fire at Skyline in October 2002. Ozment said he had kept the story quiet because of patent applications.

In 2002 he received an emergency call at 11:30 p.m. on a Friday night from mine officials at Utah's Skyline Mine. He said mine operators had attempted numerous techniques over three weeks to extinguish the mine fire, but were unsuccessful. Ozment assured mine officials that U.S. Foam engineers would find a solution to their problem.

According to Ozment he and his top engineers came up with the concept of pumping several hundred thousand cubic feet of foam into the burning coal mine.

After operating the "Hellfighter System" for only 24 hours, Ozment said, mine operators reported that the mine fire was out.

Ozment said there were 150 registered coal mine fires in the United States in 1999, most in Pennsylvania, but also in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Most burning mines are sealed up and abandoned, he said.

The Hellfighter system has been submitted to several state agencies for the suppression of their old abandoned mine fires, with discussions the most advanced in Utah where a coal mine fire in the McClean mine has been burning for 55 years, covering 17 acres. This contract calls for not just the abatement but total extinguishment of the McClean fire

“What makes this situation Big?,” Ozment said. “It has never been done before. We have extinguished an active fire but an abandoned mine is much different. It requires a completely different approach.”