On the 27th of May, 1962, a small team of workers were tasked with cleaning up a landfill site
just outside of Centralia, Pennsylvania. Just as they had done many other times
before at many other landfills they set fire to the accumulated waste, let it burn and then
doused the whole thing with water. There was only one problem: the fire didn't go out. In fact,
it would never go out. Although they didn't know it at the time this small cleanup crew had set in
motion events that would end up turning a thriving town into a smoking uninhabitable wasteland.
Before 1962, life in Centralia was good. It was home to a few thousand residents and
resembled much of small town America. There were hotels, churches, and multiple schools.
It was a community like any other and was considered, generally speaking, a safe and happy
place to live. The main business in Centralia was coal mining. For more than a hundred years coal
had been extracted from a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the town. Many of these now lay empty,
but the supplies of coal were nowhere even close to running out - in fact there was enough of the
stuff still in the ground to keep Centralia prosperous for decades if not centuries.
This all changed in 1962 when the city council decided that a landfill site inside an old strip
mine on the edge of town needed to be cleaned up. This was something that was done on a fairly
routine basis in Centralia, and the method that was used was usually a controlled burn. Burning a
landfill would drive out vermin, take care of any odor and turn bulky garbage into nice compact ash.
The volunteer fire department of Centralia had countless times before used controlled fires to
clean up illegal dumping sites around the town. This time, however, things didn't go to plan:
despite the best efforts of firefighters to damp down the landfill after the burn, the fire refused
to go out. Over the next few days smoke was seen rising from the landfill several times.
Volunteer firefighters attended again and again to pour more water on the smoking garbage,
and used bulldozers to stir up the material in the landfill. Each time the smoke briefly stopped
rising before returning again a few days later. As days turned into weeks the firefighters dug
deeper... and made a terrible discovery. A mine shaft leading from the pit into a deep coal mine
had not been properly sealed up before the pit had been converted to a landfill. Now this open shaft
had allowed the fire to spread underground and start feeding on the vast reserves of coal still
in place there. Rather than a fire in a landfill, Centralia was now dealing with a mine fire.
Mine fires are notoriously difficult to extinguish. In the average coal mine there
is an abundance of fuel, and the many corridors and shafts provide a steady supply of oxygen.
Once established fires in coal mines spread slowly but steadily, and stubbornly resist
every attempt to extinguish them. Sealing every entrance to deny the fire oxygen is impossible
as there are often thousands of cavities in the rock through which oxygen can be drawn.
Drowning the fire doesn't always work either as incredible amounts of water are required - if
even a tiny fire remains after dousing it will dry out the surrounding area and begin
to spread once more. With all this in mind it's not unknown for mine fires to burn for decades.
In the case of Centralia quick and decisive action might have saved the day. While the fire was
still small and relatively contained it would have been possible to dig up the entire area,
exposing and extinguishing the fire... or else to dig a trench around the likely location of
the fire and install a fireproof barrier. But unfortunately decisive action wasn't taken.
Instead the city council debated plans of action, calculated costs and sought approval
and state assistance. Questions of responsibility arose. Was the fire the purview of Centralia
or the township that surrounded it? Could the state government fund the operation?
Letters were sent and appeals were made. The job of tackling the fire was tendered, bids taken,
budgets trimmed... and while all this was happening the fire continued slowly but surely to
spread. With every passing day the cost and level of disruption required to extinguish it grew,
and it often grew just a few steps ahead of the actual response.
For example, one company was hired to dig out the fire but found that it was spreading just a little
bit faster than they could dig. Another attempt was made to smother the fire with water and slurry
but the project ran short of funds and material before completely extinguishing the blaze.
The fire survived and continued to grow. Other projects were delayed because of
budgetary concerns or put on hold while the correct permits and permissions were sought.
The fire in Centralia was by no means the only mine fire burning in the state of Pennsylvania,
and so the city had to fight constantly for funding attention and permission to take action.
Soon enough the fire had spread to underneath the town of Centralia itself.
Residents went about their lives with an inferno beneath their feet.
For some of them there were no adverse effects... and indeed there were even some positive ones.
Several streets, thanks to the heat rising from the fire below,
never needed to be cleared of snow. Residents also experienced warm temperatures all year round,
enabling them to grow crops like tomatoes and other fruit in the bare earth. Of course for most
people the fire was far from good news. As well as warm temperatures the fire vented poisonous
gases up through the ground, some of which flowed directly into houses and places of work.
Residents in these areas had to live with constant carbon monoxide alarms
and routine visits from inspectors who would test the gas levels in their homes and instruct them to
leave their windows open 24 hours a day. These precautions weren't sufficient. It was totally
routine for residents in the worst affected areas to constantly suffer the headaches drowsiness and
confusion of carbon monoxide poisoning. Worse still, sinkholes would sometimes open up as the
fire burned away coal beneath the city. In 1981, a 12-year-old boy nearly died when a sinkhole
15 storeys deep opened up in his backyard, venting hot steam and poisonous gases. He
was saved by a tree root which he was able to cling onto until his cousin could rescue him.
Residents complained and protested, but by now the fire had spread over such a vast area
that a solution was starting to seem out of reach.
To extinguish the fire completely a huge tract of land would have to be excavated. This would
require a significant portion of the town to be demolished, and would take up to 10 years of
consistent hard and dangerous work. When it first began the fire might have been extinguished by an
investment of a few thousand hours of work and a sum measured in thousands of dollars.
Now, with it reaching under the entire town, the cost of extinguishing it exceeded the real estate
value of Centralia itself. And so, years after the fire began, a new solution was proposed:
the town would be abandoned. The US government bought out the vast majority of the remaining
residents. The population dwindled as families fled. The town that had been home to more than
1,000 people in 1960 was home to just 16 by the year 2010. Centralia now barely exists.
Its postcode is no longer recognized by the United States Postal Service. The vast majority of houses
and other buildings have been demolished. The fire still burns beneath the ground, venting smoke
through cracks in the road and melting the snow as it settles each winter. A final few residents
still live in the boundaries of the town, but they have been forbidden from passing on their
property when they die. One day soon Centralia will be nothing more than a memory. Long after
it has been erased from existence, however, the fire which destroyed it - the fire begun by a
single careless burn in a landfill on the edge of town - will still be blazing beneath the earth.