Centralia Highway, Pennsylvania, USA, opening up
There are only three people left in the city devastated by an invisible fire in 1962. Tragic history dates back to the 19th century.
Centraliaa small mining town in the US state of Pennsylvania, is today a ghost town: the streets are alleys, the houses have been demolished, the mail no longer reaches there and only a handful of residents refuse to leave.
Reason is not under their noses, but under their feet: a underground fire which began in 1962 and continues to burn in the coal seams.
The History of Centralia — the real city whose sinister atmosphere and fire in an underground mine inspired the 2006 film (not the video game) Silent Hill — starts at 19th centurywith the discovery of rich deposits of anthracite in Columbia County, USA. A population center grew around a tavern called Bull’s Head that, over time, gained streets designed by a mining engineer, a railway line to transport coal and several names: Bull’s Head, Centerville and, finally, Centralia. In 1890, the municipality had around 2,761 inhabitants, seven churches, two theaters, a bank, five hotels, 27 taverns and a dense network of shops and services.
In the 1860s and 1870s, the entire Anthracite Region was the scene of violent labor conflicts. In 1868, the founder of Centralia, Alexander Rae, was murdered in an episode associated with the climate of confrontation surrounding the Molly Maguires, a group linked to the workers’ protest, recalls s. Crime became a symbol of a Minas Gerais economy where wages, security and power were fought over, literally, underground.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, anthracite production declined, the Great Depression closed large mines and many resorted to clandestine extraction, reentering abandoned galleries to remove remaining coal. That bootleg miningoften at the cost of removing support pillars, left a perforated underground, full of voids that were difficult to map.
Decades later, these cavities would become almost impossible to contain a fire that spread invisibly.
In 1966 the railway service ended, but in the middle of the century the town still looked like a “normal” village, with schools, parishes and routines, despite the industry that had created it being in decline.
The turning point arrived in 1962. Versions differ: for some, a burning of waste in a municipal landfill, before Memorial Day, was not completely extinguished; for others, hot ash from a coal boiler was dumped into the dumpster. What is certain is that the heat found openings in an old open-pit mine, next to the Odd Fellows cemetery, and descended to the layers of anthracite beneath the town.
Fires in coal seams advance slowly, guided by oxygen and fractures in the rock, releasing toxic gases with no flame in sight. In Centralia, the network of old galleries functioned as a conduit system.
For years, the danger was more discussed than visible. Steam rising from the ground on cold days and a sulfurous odor were the most obvious signs. Technicians tried containment trenches, grout injection and excavations, but the unknown tunnels sabotaged every plan. The dramatic episodes came later.
In 1979, the mayor, owner of a gas station, measured the temperature of a buried tank and obtained 77.8 ºC. In February 1981, a 12-year-old boy, Todd Domboski, suddenly fell into a hole that opened in his grandmother’s yard, several meters deep and filled with carbon monoxide vapor. He was saved by getting stuck in a root and being pulled up by his cousin. The US was facing a national public security crisis.
Faced with a fire that already spread over hundreds of acres, state and federal authorities faced a difficult choice: continue to spend millions in an effort to extinguish it without guarantees or remove people from an area where the ground could crack, give way or release gases without warning.
In 1983, Congress funded a relocation program. House by house, the community fell apart: More than a thousand residents moved away and hundreds of buildings were demolished. In 1990, only a few dozen inhabitants remained. Two years later, the state of Pennsylvania expropriated the missing properties, and in 2002, the postal service abolished Centralia’s code. Nearby Byrnesville was also abandoned.
A minority refused to leave and fought in court throughout the 2000s, claiming that certain zones were stable and that home remained home. The courts upheld the expropriations, but in 2013 a compromise was reached: the remaining residents could stay until the end of their lives, then passing the properties to the state. On the surface, signs were multiplied warning of “Underground fire”, “Unstable soil” and “Carbon monoxide”.
Deformations caused by heat and subsidence repeatedly damaged Pennsylvania Route 61, requiring a permanent detour in the early 1990s. The old, isolated section would gain fame as “Graffiti Highway”, attracting onlookers and photographers, until it was covered in dirt in 2020 to discourage visitors. In the rest of the area, the transformation is more discreet: snow melting faster in certain hot spots, young trees breaking through the asphalt, stairs that no longer lead anywhere.
Despite the loss, Centralia still has some traces of life. The municipal building remains intact, volunteers organize cleaning days to stop illegal dumping of waste and there are small redevelopment initiatives, such as tree planting. The goal is no longer to “bring back” old Centralia, but to preserve some sense of place in a territory where the past continues to literally burn. According to the 2020 census, there were only five residents. Last year, according to an interview with a local, RocaNews found (video below) that there were only three people left in the ghost town.
Centralia is burning at depths of up to 90 meters over an area of 13 kilometers in 15 km². At its current rate, it is estimated that it could continue to burn for more than 250 years.
