Centralia · The Fire Underground Is Still Burning

In 1962 a fire lit at the rubbish dump in Centralia, Pennsylvania, reached a coal seam under the town and then followed the mine tunnels outward. It has been burning ever since.

Cracks opened in the ground and gave off white smoke. Carbon monoxide in basements rose past the limit. The state bought out the houses and revoked the town's postcode. Of a place that once held more than a thousand people, a handful of households stayed.

The road in is buckled and covered in graffiti. Visitors say that snow landing on the smoking ground melts on contact.

Bureau note: the fire is expected to burn for another two hundred and fifty years. Nobody has found a way to put it out.

Natural Mysteries / Pennsylvania · USA / 1962