Centralia: The Disaster Beneath Their Feet

A fire that was never meant to last more than a few hours… has now been burning for over sixty years. In 1962, a routine landfill burn in Centralia, Pennsylvania ignited something no one could control — an underground coal seam fire that would slowly consume the town from below. What followed wasn’t a sudden catastrophe, but a long, quiet disaster marked by toxic gas, collapsing ground, and a community forced to make an impossible decision: stay, or leave everything behind.In this episode, we explore how a normal mining town became one of the most haunting environmental disasters in North America — and why, decades later, the fire is still burning.

Sources:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/centralia-pennsylvania-rebirth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

https://www.history.com/articles/mine-fire-burning-more-50-years-ghost-town

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There are disasters that happen all at once. Loud, violent, impossible to ignore. And then there are the disasters that move quietly, slowly reshaping everything beneath your feet until there's nothing left to stand on. Stories where the danger isn't something you can always see, but it's there. Constant waiting burning. This is one of those stories. Welcome back to the Crash Lessons Podcast. I'm your host Robin, and today we're talking about Centralia, Pennsylvania. A small mining town that didn't collapse overnight, didn't flood, didn't explode. Instead, it was hollowed out from below by a fire that started in 1962 and has never stopped burning. A fire that crept beneath homes, roads, and entire lives, turning solid ground into something unstable, unpredictable, and eventually unlivable. And the most unsettling part, some people saw the warning signs, but stayed anyways. But before Centralia became a place people associate with smoke, sinkholes, and a fire that won't die, it was just an ordinary town, just your average Joe. The kind of place built around hard work, family, and routine, where people knew their neighbors and the future felt predictable, and to understand when or how shit suddenly hit the fan, we have to start from there. So life this is going to be life before the disaster. Centralia is located in Columbia County in Pennsylvania, United States. Before it was Centralia, it started out as just some land owned by the Native Americans who sold a good chunk of the land to northeastern Pennsylvania in 1749 to colonial oh my gosh, colonial agents for 500 pounds. Later they constructed Reading Road, which went from Reading to Fort Augusta, and then eventually a large portion of the road was developed into Route 61, which is a very popular road trip destination. Then in 1793, a gentleman named Robert Morris, who was one of the signatures on the Declaration of Independence, had acquired a third of Centralia's Valley land. He had declared bankruptcy in 1798, to which the land then went to the Bank of the United States. Shortly after this, a sea captain named Stephen Girard from France had purchased Morris's land from the bank for around $30,000, which is over $800,000 today. After purchasing the land, he had come to find that there was anthracite coal in the area. Anthrocyte coal, hope I'm saying that right. I think I'm saying that right. I don't know. We're going with it. Also known as hard coal or black coal, was the highest carbon content, uh has sorry, has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density, which makes it the highest ranking of all the coal types. The town had two names before they finally landed on Centralia. Bullshead was the first name of the town that was given to it when a man named Jonathan Fost had opened Bullshead Tavern in what was called Roaring Creek Township in 1832. Then, in 1842, the land on which Centralia was located was purchased by the Locust Mountain Coal and Iron Company. A mining engineer named Alexander Ray had moved his family in and begun to start the village and began the start of the village, laying out the streets and lots of uh and lots for development, also naming the town Centerville. But then in 1865 it was changed to Centralia because the US Post Office already had a Centerville in uh Scholkill County. Um they had also built the Mine Run Railroad in 1854 to transport coal out of the valley. In 1856, the first two mines were opened in Centralia, the Locust Mine and the Coal Ridge Mine. In 1860 came the Hazeldell Colliery Mine and then Centralia Mine in 1862, followed by the Continental Mine in 1863. In 1866, sorry, there's a lot of dates here, just giving you some history, some backstory to Centralia. In 1866, Centralia officially became a borough, and for anyone who doesn't know what that is, it's a self-governing community in the United States. So it's responsible for local decisions like roads, bylaws, and services. So basically, it became its own little town, and the economy there depended on the coal mining jobs. Crazy little snippet here, but the founder of Centralia, Alexander Ray, was murdered in his buggy by members of the Molly Maguire's in October of 1868. Three men were convicted of his murder and hanged in March of 1878. And then who were the Molly Maguire? Well, they were an Irish 19th century secret society that were active in Ireland, Liverpool, and parts of eastern United States who were known for trying to get better wages and working conditions for Irish coal miners in Pennsylvania. The Molly Maguire's were very active in Centralia in the 1860s, and there were several murders and tons of arson happening. A local coal legend for you, Father Daniel Ignatius McDermott, who was the first Roman Catholic priest to stay in Centralia, had cursed the land after being assaulted by a few members of the McGuire's. He said that one day Saint Ignatius Catholic Church would be the last standing structure in Centralia. But the church was demolished in 1972. Many of the leaders of the Molly Maguire's were hanged by 1877, but supposedly descendants had continued to live there until the 1980s. Just a random little side fact for ya. The town was at its peak in 1980 with the highest number of residents at 2,761. And at this point, the town consisted of seven churches, five hotels, twenty seven saloons, two theaters, a bank, a post office, and fourteen general and grocery stores. Thirty-seven years later, anthracite coal was at its peak in Pennsylvania, and shortly after that, the production had declined because of World War I and many of the young men enlisting in the Army. Then the Wall Street crash of 1929 had also affected the mining industry and forced Lee Valley Coal Company to close five of their mines in the Centralia area. But the area was still mined by bootleg miners, which is just um which is just illegal mining. They would do what is called pillar robbing, which is to steal the coal that was used in the pillars of the old mines to hold up the roofs, which resulted in many of the idle mines collapsing. In 1950, Centralia Council had acquired the rights to all anthracite coal in the Centralia area. Coal mining continued on in the 1960s and after the bootleg miners were still going at it until 1982. To this day, there is still open pit mining active in the area. According to a census, the population of Centralia in 1950 was 1,986 residents and then went down to 1,012 residents in 1980. By the mid-20th century, Centralia was no longer the booming mining hub it had once been. The population was shrinking, many of the mines had closed, and the town's glory days seemed to be behind it. But despite the economic decline, coal still defined Centralia. The mines remained beneath the town like a vast underground maze. The generate and generations of digging had left behind something no one could fully control. For over a century, coal had given Centralia life. It provided jobs, built businesses, and shaped the town's identity. Ironically, it would also become the thing that brought about its downfall. In May of 1962, a seemingly routine decision made by town officials set off a chain of events that would transform Centralia from a struggling coal town into one of the most famous ghost towns in America. What began as a simple attempt to clean up a local landfill would ignite a fire that is still burning beneath the town to this day. So now that you have some background to the town itself, let's get into the disaster part of this story. The story begins in May of 1962. Now, at this time, there's not an exact cause of the continuous fire, but there are a couple of different theories. I'll go over the different theories of what started the fire first, starting with the more well-known and agreed upon version. So in May of 1962, it was just before Memorial Day, when the town was going to clean up the landfill like they had done in previous years, the Centralia Council had hired five members of the volunteer fire company to clean up the landfill that was located in an abandoned strip mine pit next to the Odd Fellows Cemetery on the outskirts of town. On May 27th, just like they had done in previous years, I will note here that the landfill in previous years was in a different location. Um in case that has any correlation. The firefighters set the dump on fire and let it burn. They had a, you know, a controlled burn, and I have that in quotations though. This time, unlike other years, the fire was not fully extinguished, and there was a small opening that led in the maze of the tunnels below, and the fire snuck in. Another theory is that the fire actually started the day prior when someone dumped hot ash or hot coal into the open garbage pit. There was a small crack or opening in the surface because the people who were responsible for placing a fire resistant clay barrier in the landfill had fallen behind schedule, leaving it incomplete. Which so this allowed some small pieces of hot coal or ash to sneak through and ignite underground. So that's theory number two. Uh the last theory is that the Bass Colliery Fire of 1932, so like 30 years beforehand, was never fully extinguished and it made its way to the landfill in 1962. The Bass Collier Fire was an underground coal mine fire, and the thought behind this theory was that because there were so many mines interconnected underneath Centralia and the surrounding area, um, the fire had traveled underground for years before it reached the landfill. This isn't a crazy guess considering the story is about a fire that has been literally burning for years underground. But this theory was debunked by Frank Jurgell Sr., who had claimed that him and his brother had a bootleg mine operation going near the landfill, and if the tunnels were burning, they surely would have died or been like taken out at least by the noxious gases. But regardless of what started the fire, how the situation was handled in the immediate aftermath stays the same throughout every story and is widely agreed upon that it was mishandled. So the fire was extinguished using fire directly following directly following the start of the fire. Um, but it continued to reignite no matter how many times they tried to put it out. Flames were seen in the landfill days later, which had suggested that there may be something going on below the surface. After a fire was spotted again on June 4th, they had brought in bulldozers and rakes to try and stir up the burnt remains to try to locate where the fire was reoccurring from. This is when they discovered a 15-foot hole at the base of the pit near the north wall, the landfill. Despite the recurring fire and the giant hole, they found they still allowed people to continue dumping trash into the landfill, into this pit. At the time, many believed the fire could still be brought under control, but over the following year, months and years, strange changes began appearing around Centralia. What first seemed like a stubborn landfill fire was proving to be something much larger and much more dangerous burning beneath the town. As the underground minefire spread through abandoned nine tunnels, residents started noticing unusual warning signs. The ground became unusually hot in some areas, toxic gases seeped to the surface, steam vents appeared seemingly at random, and vegetation began dying without any obvious explanation. When people started to notice conditions were only getting worse, the city had brought in some engineers and government investigators to survey the area. They drilled test holes, measured underground temperatures, and monitored gases to determine the extent of the fire. What they found suggested that the blaze had started to travel through the network of old mine tunnels beneath the surface. Clarence Kashner, the president of the independent mines Breakman and Trucker's Union, Breakerman and Truckers Union, came in to inspect the situation and brought in an engineer named Gordon Smith from the Department of Mines and Mineral Industries, who said he could dig out the smoldering material in the pit. They also brought in Art Joyce, who was a mine expert, and tested the random steam that was emanating from the ground. The test came back positive for carbon monoxide concentration, which is typical of a coal mine fire. The Centralia Council had decided they needed further help to clean up the and stop the fire, so they had sent a letter to the LVCC, the Lee Valley Coal Company, informing them of the fire, but did leave out the suspected cause of the fire because they thought they may be reluctant to help them. They held a meeting at the fur fire site and there were two ideas proposed. James Schauber Sch that was weird. James Schauber Sr. kind of got the impression that the reps from the LVCC in uh Susquehanna Coal Company would not be able to fund the cleanup, so he expected the state would put out thirty thousand dollars, roughly three hundred and thirty thousand dollars today, to dig out the fire. Um another proposed idea was from the Centralia strip mine operator Alonso Sanchez, who said he would do the digging for free if he could keep any coal he found without having to pay any royalties. This idea fell through though, was shut down pretty quickly, uh because part of his plan was to do some exploratory drilling, which would only set the project back. A few days after the meeting, the digging out of the fire pit project was open to a bidding and a contract was given to Britty Inc. for an estimated $20,000. So, on August 22nd, 1962, the first excavation project was underway. With this being the first excavation attempt, you obviously know that it was not successful. Otherwise, it would be the only excavation attempt. First off, the size of the fire was greatly underestimated by the engineering team who had made the plans for the excavation. When Brittany started digging into the underground mine chambers, it allowed a gust of oxygen inside, which just fed the fire and pushed it further past their excavation point. So they were always just one step behind the fire. They were also using a shovel that was way too small for the job. And they were also only allowed to work stand like a standard shift, Monday to Friday, eight-hour days. And the work was actually stopped for five days at one point during the Labor Day weekend. So with the fire and the move and the restricted work hours, they were literally chasing the fire, which made the job go on even longer and raised the cost for the project. The project ended up running out of money, and the job had come to a stop on October 29th, 1962. On November 1st, 1962, the bids were um, they had opened another round of bids to another excavation project where they would flush the mines using crushed rock with mixed with water and pump it into the mines ahead of the fire. Um K and H excavating won the bid for $28,400. This excavation attempt was also unsuccessful due to the heavy snowfall Centralia had in the freezing temperatures, which ended up freezing the water lines, and the rock grinding machine had also froze during a blizzard. For this project, they needed to drill multiple holes in the ground to dump the rock water mixture into, but they didn't have enough supplies, and if they weren't able to fill like fully fill the holes that they drilled, then there would still be room in the fire to escape. So that was that for attempt number two. Also did not work. There was one more there was there were no more attempts made, but there were a couple more ideas proposed. Uh, one was filling the trench within with combustible with incombustible materials, or build a small trench in a complete circle and add a flush barrier, or complete a full flushing project. Uh none of these happened. They just kind of left it as it as is, I guess, for a while. Um now in 1979, so that was still that was like, you know, all of their attempts that they tried to do to get it under control in 1962. We're gonna move ahead, jump ahead to 1979. It was starting to become a little bit more worrisome to the citizens when John Coddington went to check the fuel levels of his underground tanks. He stuck his dipstick into the tank, and when he pulled it out, it felt pretty hot. So he dropped a thermometer into the tank, and when he pulled it out, it read 172 degrees Fahrenheit or 77.8 Celsius. By 1980, there were some health issues coming up due to the high levels of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and the low levels of oxygen. Another worrisome incident happened on February 14th, 1981, when a 12-year-old boy named Todd Debosk Dombosky almost fell into a sinkhole about four feet wide and 150 feet deep. He was just chilling in his grandmother's backyard when the sinkhole opened up beneath him. He managed to grab onto a tree root and his cousin was able to pull him up to safety. For some people, this was the moment Centralia's fire stopped being an inconvenience and started looking like a catastrophe. If a child could nearly disappear into the earth in its own backyard, nowhere in town truly felt safe anymore. They tested the steam that was emanating from the sinkhole and had lethal levels of carbon monoxide. There were lethal levels of carbon monoxide emanating from the holes in the ground, extremely hot underground temperatures, and random sinkholes, but yet the people of Centralia were still divided on the severity of the situation. There were multiple support groups amongst the citizens of Centralia where they were just debating about the actual risk the fire posed to the community. But with all of the shit going on and the report and a reporter named David DeCoc, who had written over 500 articles regarding the fire starting in 1976, the situation was starting to get statewide attention, and finally in 1983, the U.S. Congress gave $42 million to relocation efforts. More than a thousand residents moved out of town and 500 structures were demolished. By 1990, there were recorded 63 residents who still lived in Centralia. Hold on one second. Anyways. My gosh, that's almost a tongue twister. As long as they are given fair compensation and condemned the build the remaining buildings. The remaining 63 residents did try to overturn this, but failed. In 2002, Centralia's zip code was discontinued. In 2006, there were only 16 homes still there. In 2009, there were only 11 residents, and the governor Ed Rundell began evicting the remaining citizens. The fire had also traveled beneath the village of Brinsville, which forced an evacuation there as well. In 2010, there were only seven residents, five homes left who had no plans to leave, and believed that they were victims of. Massive fraud, motivated primarily by interest in what is conservatively estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars of some of the best anthracite coal in the world. The state did come to an agreement with these residents that they could live out the rest of their lives there in their homes would become state property. Um, I believe I forgot to put it in, but they did uh reach a settlement to uh they gave them money, like the money for the homes once they died there. That made sense. Made sense in my brain. Anyways, and that's where Centralia's story takes an almost surreal turn. Even after decades of um evacuations, demolitions, legal battles, and millions of dollars spent relocating residents, the fire never actually went out. Today the underground mine fire is still burning beneath Centralia. Experts estimate it could continue to burn for decades, possibly even centuries, slowly consuming the vast coal seams beneath the town. Some estimates suggest the fire could continue burning for another 250 years if left undisturbed. In other words, the fire will likely outlive everyone who has ever lived in Centralia. What was once a thriving Pennsylvania community has become a ghost town, with only a handful of residents remaining and almost no trace of the streets, schools, churches, and neighborhoods that once stood there. As Centralia became increasingly abandoned, it also became the subject of countless ghost stories and urban legends. Visitors have reported hearing unexplained voices, seeing shadowy figures moving through the fog and steam vents, and experiencing a strange feeling of being watched. Well, none of these claims have ever been verified. Have any paranormal claims ever been verified? I don't know. Um they helped cement Centralia's reputation as one of America's most infamous ghost towns. Oh my goodness, sorry. Centralia is also frequently linked to the horror franchise Silent Hill I watched recently. The movie's writer, Roger Avery, acknowledged that Centralia influenced the film's setting with its smoke-filled landscape, abandoned roads, and underground fires serving as the inspiration for the town's unsettling atmosphere. So if you haven't seen that, I recommend pretty good movie. You should go watch it. Today, Centralia is almost unrecognizable from the thriving mining town it once was. Entire blocks that once held homes now sit as empty fields. In some places, stairs lead to nowhere and roads pass through neighborhoods that no longer exist. Most of the homes, businesses, and public buildings have been demolished, leaving behind empty lots, overgrown streets, and only a handful of residents. Steam can still be seen rising from the ground in certain areas. Evidence that the minefire continues to burn deep beneath the surface. More than 60 years after it began, the fire remains active and is expected to continue burning for many more years. In the end, Centralia wasn't destroyed overnight. It wasn't wiped out by a hurricane, tornado, or earthquake. Instead, it disappeared slowly over decades as an underground fire forced thousands of people to abandon their homes and leave behind the community they had built. What began as a simple attempt to clean up a landfill in 1962 resulted in one of the most unusual environmental disasters in American history. And while the town itself may be nearly gone, Centralia's story isn't over. Beneath the empty roads and forgotten neighborhoods, the fire is still burning. So what was the crash lesson? The warning signs were everywhere. Toxic gases. Hold on, I need a sip of my wine. I thought it was getting dry. Anyways. The warning signs were there. Let's just restart the sec this little section. Hold on. So what was the crash lesson? The warning signs were everywhere. Toxic gases were seeping from the ground, sinkholes were opening up, the earth was literally heating beneath people's feet. Yet for years, residents, officials, and experts debated how serious the danger really was. The crash lesson here is that not every disaster arrives all at once. Sometimes it happens slowly, one warning sign at a time. And when a crisis develops gradually, it's easy to normalize the danger, dismiss the risk, or convince yourself that tomorrow will be the same as today. Because in Centralia's case, the fire didn't destroy the town overnight. It gave people decades of warning. The tragedy was that by the time everyone agreed on the severity of the problem, the town was already lost. That's it for today's episode of Crash Lessons Podcast. Thanks for listening, and I will see you next time.