Centralia mine fire

The Centralia mine fire is a coal-seam fire that has been burning in the labyrinth of abandoned coal mines underneath the borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States, since at least May 27, 1962. Its original cause and start date are still a matter of debate. It is burning at depths of up to 300 feet (90 m) over an 8-mile (13 km) stretch of 3,700 acres (15 km²). At its current rate, it could continue to burn for over 250 years. Due to the fire, Centralia was mostly abandoned in the 1980s. There were 1,500 residents at the time the fire is believed to have started, but as of 2017 Centralia has a population of 5 and most of the buildings have been demolished.

On May 7, 1962, the Centralia Council met to discuss the approaching Memorial Day and how the town would go about cleaning up the Centralia landfill, which was introduced earlier that year. The 300-foot-wide, 75-foot-long (91 m × 23 m) pit was made up of a 50-foot-deep (15 m) strip mine that had been cleared by Edward Whitney in 1935, and came very close to the northeast corner of Odd Fellows Cemetery. There were eight illegal dumps spread about Centralia, and the council's intention in creating the landfill in one of the abandoned mine pits was to stop the illegal dumping, as new state regulations had forced the town to close an earlier dump west of St. Ignatius Cemetery. Trustees at the cemetery were opposed to the landfill's proximity to it but recognized the illegal dumping elsewhere was a serious problem and envisioned that the new pit would resolve it.