history

Centralia is a town of Pennsylvania. It was a particularly flourishing city, thanks to its mining activity of anthracite.

In 1962 an accident occurs: waste takes fire in a gallery.

Fire was quickly extinguished, at least it seems to be. More deeply, the fire continued to go forward. Again and again. During 20 years, people fought fire by sprinkling the mine, by withdrawing any fuel, by drilling other galleries but the fire continued to go forward.

In that condition, the government estimated that the costs to extinguish this gigantic fire were too high, and thus decided to let it burn. They evacuated the city because of the toxic emanations. Centralia became a phantom city.

In 1980, fire had burned approximately 200 acres and according to a study of 1983, it could still burn another 100 years and could destroy 3700 acres!

Bonus hOwGee : the localisation of Centralia on Google Earth.
Unfortunately, it's not yet high-quality and I don't think that orange splits represent fire under the ground ;)

source : offroaders.com
for those who do not know :
- "Silent Hill", the recent movie, coming from a video game, tells the story of 2 women entering a phantom city. The full name of this movie is "Silent Hill: Centralia".
- Anthracite is a hard, compact variety of mineral coal that has a high luster. It has the highest carbon count and contains the fewest impurities of all coals, despite its lower calorific content. Anthracite coal is the highest of the metamorphic rank, in which the carbon content is between 92% and 98%. The term is applied to those varieties of coal which do not give off tarry or other hydrocarbon vapours when heated below their point of ignition. Anthracite ignites with difficulty and burns with a short blue flame, without smoke.