A local TV station investigated an underground mine fire in Pennsylvania
poynter.org
poynter.org
Part 2: https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-cou...
Part 3: https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-cou...
Part 4: https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-cou...
I stopped by Centralia on a road trip, it's a bit of a "tourist destination" in the atlas-obscura sense.. It was a very weird place. Roads were buckled everywhere, smoke was coming out of cracks.. enitire neighborhoods were abandoned and houses missing, etc.
Word is that old Rt 61 was covered with dirt during early 2020 to stop people going out there during Covid. AFAIK the rest of the stuff you mention is still there.
The coal companies never cared and never will. I saw what they did to these communities. Now they are all suffering from the opioid epidemic[1]. Glad these two are doing some real local reporting.
[1] https://www.northcentralpa.com/news/crime/mt-carmel-doctor-p...
These are the people who built the county, and what did they get...
Dad's dad mined coal and Mom's dad worked in the companion industry (steel milling). Fortunately neither was seriously injured from it, but other friends and family members were not as fortunate.
they definitely don't make em like this anymore.
Raising Arizona is another from that era which really clicked comedically for my young mind...
Riiight, the young, gothy, Winona Ryder had nothing to do with it.
That said, the Centralia fire is a primary inspiration for the 2006 film adaptation of Silent Hill.
It's a beautiful area, but this part of the Coal Region hasn't seen anything approaching prosperity for at least half a century. Not even fracking helped - the Marcellus Shale is all to the north and west.
The most surprising part of the story is in the second-to-last paragraph!
https://www.itv.com/news/london/2023-01-19/illegal-rubbish-d...
It's an eerily beautiful place. There's hardly any infrastructure to explore, but walking through the overgrown streets and sidewalks and seeing the concrete steps and wrought iron railings is quite sobering. The town has three fairly large cemeteries, all of which are kept in excellent condition. The Odd Fellows cemetery is adjacent to the dump where the fire started in the 60's and really paints a picture of how far back many of the families that lived there go. There are a number of Civil and Revolutionary War graves in Odd Fellows as well, easily identified by the small American flags planted at their base.
If you walk down the dirt road (2nd St), you'll encounter a number of 10 foot poles surrounded by iron cages intended to keep people away from what used to be extremely hot exhaust gases. Locals used to toss trash into the cages to watch it melt, but it's difficult to encounter an exposed hot spot anymore. There's some debate about whether the fire is actually still burning in the coal seams as the terrestrial evidence (steam rising from the rocks, barren patches of land that melts snow, etc) has become less visible in the past couple decades, but there are certainly still "warm" areas. I brought an infrared thermometer with me on a trip last year and found a spot in a rocky outcropping that topped out near 150*F. If you go looking, the most active areas are now located just off Big Mine Run Rd just before it turns up the hill towards town.
I'd encourage anyone who's interested to stop through if you're traveling along the I-81 corridor. The surrounding towns of Shenandoah, Ashland, and Mt. Carmel are hauntingly beautiful in a way that can only be found in Pennsylvania Coal Country. Most of the original inhabitants of Centralia relocated to these neighboring towns and many will gladly share their tales, often from first-hand experience. There's an incredible amount of history in the region that dates back hundreds of years. Some of it has been overshadowed by the fire, including the crash of United Flight 624 back in 1948[1]. The Disaster Area podcast has an excellent episode that covers the birth and eventual decline of Centralia, and the host is herself a resident of Carbondale where a smaller but active fire has been burning for about as long.
I'd be happy to share some recent photos if anyone's interested. Some of the more captivating images I've taken are of Big Mine Run, a small mine-fed creek that is bright orange, visible even at night, from all the iron oxide in the water.
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I grew up going there in the 70s. That place was magic to a teenager. I met a girl there once with my brother and she ate a whole cigarette and proceeded to vomit soon after. A number of times we jumped off the cars in the middle of the haunted house. And there was a time we bought stink bombs, little glass vials, filled with a putrid, smelling chemical, and busted it open in the middle of an arcade.
There is no entrance or parking fee to this amusement park as well. You only pay for the rides. And that’s still to this day true.
The last time I went there, they were still building this interesting new ride that has no mechanics, it’s almost like a slide and it’s all hand made out of wood. I think you’re going to ride carts down it.
And if you go there, 100% get the pierogies. you will not find any better anywhere.
As I said in another comment, this are is where my mother was born (Kulpmont) but I have relatives in Shamokin and Mount Caramel as well.
This is a Polish side of my family and the culture that was very strong. I really miss those towns. We could walk into the polka hall and just watch people. Some of them would know us and give us a shot of vodka.
In Mt Carmel, we used to walk on the old slag heaps and look for crystals. There was a mountain. We actually called “Crystal Mountain“. And on the way to that site we used to walk over the creeks that are filled with sulfur and stunk like you couldn’t imagine.
it used to make me happy to remember these things but now it just makes me depressed since I know there’s probably nowhere left like that anymore.
fyi it is in Wikipedia for some time
>There are over a dozen active mine fires throughout the state of Pennsylvania.
When this one first hit the news back then, the earlier underground fire burning since 1962 was cited in such a way that people were kind of led to think it's not so unusual after all.
>the historic Centralia mine fire, which has been burning since at least May 27, 1962
Renewing the call to action to do nothing.