After hearing about Centralia Pennsylvania on the History Channel the fiance and myself took a quick side trip off of Route 80 on our way home from kayaking.

Here's the story.

Centralia is a small anthracite mining town on top of a mountain in North Eastern PA. One day in 1962 someone lights the town dump on fire to burn some trash. The fire catches an exposed coal seam and begins to burn under ground. Due to lack of proper funding and tactics the fire burns for 20 years unabated. The last straw is when a kid almost falls 150 feet into a burning cavern as the ground just gave way beneath him. Finally in the 80's and 90's the Feds paid for everyone to move citing eminent domain. Here are some cool pics of a very weird place.

As you come to the top of the mountain the road makes a severe right turn and you see this sign.


1,100 people used to live here. This portion is on top of a small hill where houses once stood. It stinks like rotten egss and the ground is actually pretty hot.


They used to actually have pipe vents that let out the smoke but now in most places it just kinda seeps through the ground in certain places. Right now the fire affects about 200 acres or so, it could spread to 3,700 acres and burn for at a minimum of 100 years. If the fire spreads into a larger coal seam it could burn for thousands of years and affect nearby towns.


This is where Route 61 went through to town. The road has buckled and collapsed in many places. At this spot a 3-4 foot trench has openened. They have moved the road around to the left of this picture about a half mile or so.


This is atop that small hill. Years ago Centralia would've spread out before us in the little valley here. By all acounts it was a cute little town. The State owns all of this land now and the people who refuse to move are actually squatters. The state demolishes the homes as people die/move so that others don't move in. Right now less than 40 people live in town.


Centralia circa 1960


so the lesson is don't burn trash in what was an open pit mine, you just might destry a small town.

i blame bush for not knowing this would happen

holy fuck nuts!

20 year fire?

that is crazy, ive never heard about anyhitng, so the fire was started by someone like burning trash and spread into the mines?

i've been to centralia dozens of times. i actually have witnessed the town being torn down house by house. last time i was through (about 8 years ago) there were only about 10 houses left of people that refused to leave.

the town dump was in an old open pit mine. Apparently there was an exposed vein of coal that caught fire. Efforts to put it out were made as soon as it was discovered but being Labor Day, they let it burn until the holliday was over. Oops

We learned about this in one of my classes last fall. Very interesting stuff... Apparently there were several options (I can only remember a few) they were considering:

1) Pump water in to put it out. Probably would have worked, but then you have billions of gallons of contaminated water.

2) Suffocate the fire. Expensive, and it would fail if they miss a vent.

3) Move the town five miles down the road. Loss of history, etc.

4) Do nothing. Possibility of collapse/death.

Interesting stuff.

I think they tried this and it didn't work because internal temps reach 1000 and any water turns to steam. The smoke is sulfur steam, it's moist if you put your hand up to it.



I think this was also tried and failed.


There are only about 4 house left and the one church with the pastor's house.

i live very close to there..it is a crazy situation..i used to ddrive through in the winter and you could actually see smoke coming up from underground

funny thing is that i used to park and hook up with chicks a stones throw from the picture above..that roads actually closed off but theres a path to get onto it..its a good spot..no one will bother ya!!

I saw this on the Daily Show, of all places, a few years ago.

that's so funny, we remarked that this must be a teenage hook up spot do to the beer cans and broken glass.

What would you do when the girl you were feeling up fell into the burning pit of earth?

haha..it aint really that bad, but i guess that couldve happened..wouldve had a fun time explaining that one

funny thing is the one night when we were all bombed my friend actually drove down that road..i was so pissed at him at the time..i was like, have you lost your fuckin mind!! now if i see him and the others in the car wed just laugh

hehe, notice the truck in this picture. As we walked down this ZZ-top hillbilly dude comes screaming up the street with a pissed off look on his face. Was this your friend?

naw..unless he grew a beard recently..i havent seen him in like a year..

i believe you tho..some of the locals are pretty nuts

ill take some pics in the winter when the shit gets crazy

me too

Yeah, I've seen a documentary show on this before. It's strange to think that the Earth is burning beneath our feet.

that is freakin awesome

that side of PA is WEIRDOVILLE