Centralia, Pennsylvania

Centralia is, or rather was, a small mining town in the east of Pennsylvania.  The town was constructed on top of the coal mine that many of the inhabitants worked in.  These days, it doesn't have many mine workers, or shops, or restaurants, or houses, or even a postal code.  Here's why.

In 1962, a fire started in the underground mine.  There are a few theories on how it started but most agree that the source of the blaze was the town landfill which was set alight, possibly deliberately, in an effort to clear the area of the rubbish that had accumulated.

Turns out that setting fire to a year's worth of rubbish isn't a great idea when you have enough coal beneath you to invite the population of a small country to a barbecue for the next couple of centuries.  The fire made its way into the mine and it was impossible to ever extinguish it properly.  It still burns today and probably will for many years to come.

In 1979, a local petrol station owner tested the fuel level in one of his underground tanks and found that the dipstick was hot.  He then checked the temperature and found that it was about 78 degrees C.  In 1981, a sinkhole spontaneously opened underneath a local boy's feet, pulling him underground and engulfing him in toxic fumes.

The town was eventually condemned and the inhabitants evicted / evacuated.  Some people refused to leave and the town now has a population of around 10 people.

A lot of this should sound familiar to anyone who's seen the movie version of Silent Hill, as this town was its inspiration.

Here's a before and after shot showing how the town changed between 1983 and 2001:

We parked up at the end of what used to be the main highway.  This has since been re-routed, but you can still access the old road on foot and see the damage that's been done by the raging fire below the surface.

You can feel the warmth of the ground beneath your feet because of the heat below, and the air has an acrid taste thanks to the toxic fumes being emitted from the deep cracks in the ground.  There's definitely something in the air, judging by the tone of this sign:

Plumes of smoke actually rise from the crevices in the landscape.  The fire has moved over the last few years so these aren't so visible now, but here's an example from a few years back:

This is our view of what we believe used to be one of the main streets:

We walked up towards the fire's ground zero, the old landfill site:

Everyone knows you have to read between the lines with signs like those.  What I saw was: "Here's the interesting bit, come closer!  Bring your camera and something to fight off any mutated abominations of nature".

I suppose it was a mild disappointment to simply find a clearing with several of these pipes protruding from the ground:

On the right kind of day, smoke can be seen billowing from those pipes just like the various cracks in the roads.

As it stands today, Centralia doesn't quite have the eerie ghost-town atmosphere I was expecting, and has a disappointing lack of mutant citizens.  Interesting to have been there though nonetheless.