Only a few residents remain in Centralia, Pennsylvania, a borough that once had about 1,200 people and where an underground mine fire still burns beneath the streets.<\/p>\n
The disaster has made Centralia one of the clearest examples in the United States of how long the damage from fossil fuels can endure, according to AS USA<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here’s what to know<\/p>\n The Centralia fire began in May 1962 and has never been extinguished.\u00a0<\/p>\n The most widely accepted explanation is that a trash fire at a local dump spread into abandoned mine workings beneath the town that had not been sealed.<\/p>\n Coal jobs were already disappearing, so the fire intensified an economic decline that was underway.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jon Guss, writing for the Pennsylvania Center for the Book in 2007, described<\/a> it as “a sudden and dramatic disaster piled onto the advancing economic disaster throughout the region.”<\/p>\n The long-burning blaze made the area hazardous, causing sinkholes, toxic gases, and unstable ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n Centralia lost its ZIP code in 2002, and by 2025 the U.S. Census counted just four residents after a lengthy legal battle allowed a small group to stay for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n Smithsonian Magazine writer Kevin Krajik described<\/a> the altered landscape this way: “Sulfurous steam billows out of hundreds of fissures and holes in the mud.”<\/p>\n More background<\/p>\n The fire drew national attention in 1981 after 12-year-old Todd Dombowski nearly died when a sinkhole opened in his grandmother’s yard.\u00a0<\/p>\n “It was awful scary,” Dombowski recalled, per a New York Times report<\/a>. “I just grabbed some roots and hung there; the smoke was so thick I couldn’t see anything.”<\/p>\n Coal extraction can leave behind hazardous abandoned mines and polluted land, while coal- and natural gas-fired power plants contribute to air and water pollution linked to asthma, heart disease, cancer, and premature death.\u00a0<\/p>\n These fuels can also keep home energy costs elevated when families remain dependent on volatile fuel markets rather than more abundant, lower-cost energy sources such as sunlight and wind.<\/p>\n Industry lobbying has also slowed the transition to cleaner, cheaper energy in many places, delaying solutions that could better protect communities and lower utility bills.<\/p>\n The fire is not believed to threaten other nearby towns, though it also forced the relocation of Byrnesville and Germantown.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some estimates suggest it could continue burning for another 100 years, while others place the timeline closer to 250 years.<\/p>\n What’s being done?<\/p>\n Congress approved a $42 million relocation effort for Centralia residents after the 1981 sinkhole incident.\u00a0<\/p>\n Authorities later condemned and demolished many buildings, dramatically shrinking the town’s footprint and reducing the number of people exposed to the danger.<\/p>\n Pennsylvania has also continued to explain the site through its Abandoned Mine Land Program. Still, the state has been direct in its position that a full solution remains financially out of reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Most experts believe that with a very large and very expensive effort the Centralia Mine Fire could be excavated or otherwise extinguished,” the Commonwealth said<\/a>.<\/p>\n Instead, the practical response has focused on keeping people away from the most dangerous areas and preventing a public safety crisis.<\/p>\n Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Only a few residents remain in Centralia, Pennsylvania, a borough that once had about 1,200 people and where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12592,28,30,29,74007],"class_list":["post-271233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-centralia","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-trash-fire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}