Excelsior

Is there any mechanism for requesting placement of forges in or near mining areas I will pay for it if needed. If this is covered somewhere else please let me know. Secondary question can you get fire beetles on this shard?

You can get a mobile forge to put in your pack. That's much beer than a fire beetle. There is a BOD reward of a colored anvil that you can carry around as well.

Is it automated like the fire beetle? Also is there a bag of salvage on the shard?

The Mobile forge is something you can keep and use strait out of you bag. Just double click the ore and target the forge in your bag. As to the anvil, I have never owned one, so I am unsure if you can use from the bag. As for a salvage, never really did it much, but you can break down junk loot with tools, though you won't get much out of it.

I believe to use the aforementioned anvil you have to set it on the ground.

Portable Forge works from inside your backpack
Portable Anvil works from inside your backpack

This simply mean that you can craft blacksmith stuff directly from a blacksmith hammer menue while having these 2 portable in your backpack anywhere you want.

Portable anvils need to be placed on ground.

there are two types of portable anvils the bod reward anvils that actually look like anvils need to be placed on the ground but the tinker crafted portable anvils that look exactly like a portable forge can be used while its inside your pack