Failure™ Magazine

The Unforgettable Fire

Centralia, Pennsylvania’s eternal flame.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under History, Science & Technology

A close-up of old Route 61, just outside Centralia. Photo by Failure magazine.

This story begins in May of 1962 with an unremarkable rubbish fire in a non-descript little town called Centralia. Located in Columbia County, 120 miles northwest of Philadelphia, Centralia had long been a thriving coal mining community, home to 1,100 people, many of them second and third generation miners. Perhaps that is why a small pile of burning trash didn’t attract much attention, even after it ignited a coal seam on the outskirts of town, triggering an underground mine fire. Certainly, no one imagined that the conflagration would one day merit international media coverage, or that it would reduce the local population to fewer than 25 residents. In fact, virtually all that remains from 1962 is the fire, which has now been burning uninterrupted for nearly 40 years.

Today, the first thing one notices when entering Centralia is just how quiet it is. A handful of narrow houses—some occupied, most abandoned—are scattered over the grid of empty streets. On many of the vacant lots, the grass has been neatly mowed beside a driveway that extends to nowhere. Near one intersection an imposing yellow sign reads, “Public Alert: Area subject to mine subsidence and toxic gas emissions.” Nevertheless, the area doesn’t look all that dangerous. The only tangible evidence that the fire still burns is a smoking wasteland a few hundred yards from the edge of town where the ground is hot to the touch and the air reeks of sulfur, where white birch and maple trees have been rendered the color of a new penny.

Lamar Mervine, the town’s 84-year-old mayor, comes from a long line of coal miners and has lived in Centralia for most of his life. In fact, he remembers the day the fire started and recalls how no one took any action for four or five months.“I guess they wanted it to get a good start,” he quips. In those early days the cost of putting out the fire was estimated at anywhere from $175 to $30,000, but no party ever made a whole-hearted effort to extinguish the bluish flames. “They’re always a day late and a dollar short,” laments Mervine.

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