Centralia Mine Fire

The Centralia mine fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania is a massive underground fire that has been burning for more than 50 years. Though many theories exist regarding the start of the fire, the most commonly accepted is the dumping of hot ash into the Centralia Landfill, located in the remains of a strip mine inactive since the 1930s, or the result of firemen burning garbage before the Memorial Day of 1962. This lit not only the trash on fire, but also the coal residues present within the labyrinth of mining tunnels deep underground. Because of the massive expanse of tunnels, some have speculated that it could burn for hundreds of years more—until now it has devoured approximately an area the size of 35 football fields. The Centralia fire has caused the town to be almost entirely vacated. As of 2012, only ten people still lived in the town, and the U.S. Postal Service revoked its ZIP code and mailing. Nowadays the few remaining citizens walk every day through poisonous air thick with sulfur and carbon monoxide, and at risk of being swallowed up by the burning earth itself. Mining fires like this are already known to science, eating their way through coal beds throughout the world including in the U.S., China, Australia, and Europe, although concrete numbers cannot be provided. They are said to significantly increase worldwide CO₂ emissions.

Contributed by Mitchell Turino
Course: Modern Global Environmental History
Instructor: Dr. Wilko Graf von Hardenberg
University of Wisconsin–Madison, US