Inside Centralia: The Town Burning For 60 Years

Valentine's Day, 1981. Twelve-year-old Todd Domboski is walking through his grandmother's backyard in Centralia, Pennsylvania. The ground opens beneath his feet. He falls into darkness. Four feet wide. One hundred fifty feet deep. Steam and toxic gas rising from below. He grabs a tree root. His cousin pulls him out. Six inches farther and he would have died in a hole that shouldn't exist.

The hole opened because the ground beneath Centralia is burning. A fire that started in 1962 and may burn for another two hundred fifty years. A fire that consumed an entire town.

This is Centralia, Pennsylvania. In 1962, it was home to 1,100 people. Today, fewer than five remain. The town didn't die because industry left or young people moved away. It died because the ground beneath it caught fire.

The Anthracite Empire

Centralia sits on top of the Mammoth Vein--one of the thickest seams of anthracite coal ever mapped in Pennsylvania. In some places, the vein runs thirty-five feet thick. In others, seventy feet. All of it less than three hundred feet below the surface.

Anthracite isn't ordinary coal. It's hard coal. Dense. When you burn anthracite, it produces almost no smoke. It burns at temperatures exceeding two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. And it burns slow.

Pennsylvania's anthracite fields fueled the Industrial Revolution. By the 1850s, millions of tons flowed from Pennsylvania mines to cities across the eastern United States. New York. Philadelphia. Boston. Baltimore. All heated by anthracite from beneath the Pennsylvania mountains.

Building Centralia

Founded in 1854, Centralia was built to extract that coal. By 1890, the population reached 2,761. Five active mines employed over eight hundred men underground. The town produced more than a hundred thousand tons of anthracite per year--enough to heat twenty thousand homes through a Pennsylvania winter.

But beneath the prosperity, something dangerous was happening. The mining companies followed the coal wherever it led. Under houses. Under churches. Under streets. They left behind a labyrinth of tunnels, rooms, and shafts stretching for miles. Most were mapped. Some were not.

By 1962, the mines had been closed for decades. The tunnels sat empty. Forgotten. Unmapped in places. And directly connected to the surface through dozens of unsealed openings.

The Day the Fire Started

May 27, 1962. The town needed to clean up the landfill before Memorial Day. The landfill sat in an abandoned strip mine pit on the edge of town. Five volunteer firefighters were assigned to burn the trash.

The fire burned all day. Smoke rose from the pit. The smell of burning plastic and rubber drifted through town. Normal for a dump fire.

What wasn't normal was what happened underground.

The abandoned strip mine wasn't just a pit. It was connected to the old mine workings beneath Centralia. Through cracks in the rock. Through an unsealed fifteen-foot borehole. Through pathways nobody had mapped or remembered.

The heat from the dump fire traveled down into those workings. And somewhere, deep in the abandoned tunnels, it found coal. Anthracite coal. Exposed. Dry. Surrounded by oxygen.

It ignited.

The Unstoppable Fire

Once anthracite catches fire underground, it's almost impossible to extinguish. The coal burns slowly, consuming oxygen from the air flowing through the tunnels. The heat creates convection currents that pull in more air. More oxygen feeds the fire. The fire spreads.

Within weeks, smoke began appearing in unexpected places. Basement walls grew warm. Carbon monoxide seeped into homes. The fire was spreading beneath the town.

Engineers tried everything. They dug trenches to expose the burning coal. They poured water. They tried to smother it with clay and rock. Nothing worked. The fire found new paths. New coal. New oxygen.

By 1979, the fire had consumed seventy-five acres of coal beneath Centralia. Surface temperatures reached 900 degrees Fahrenheit in places. Sinkholes opened without warning. Trees died from root damage. The ground became unstable.

Then came February 14, 1981. The day Todd Domboski fell through his grandmother's backyard.

The Town Evacuates

That sinkhole changed everything. It was no longer theoretical danger. It was a twelve-year-old boy nearly dying in his own backyard.

In 1983, Congress allocated $42 million to relocate Centralia's residents. Most accepted the buyout and left. Houses were demolished. Streets were torn up. Businesses closed.

But some residents refused to leave. They fought the relocation in court. They argued the danger was exaggerated. They claimed the government wanted the coal beneath their homes.

By 1990, the population had dropped to sixty-three. By 2000, it was twelve. By 2010, fewer than ten.

In 2013, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania used eminent domain to claim all remaining properties. Most of the holdouts finally left. Today, fewer than five people remain in Centralia.

What You Can See Today

Route 61 through Centralia is closed. The road buckles from the heat beneath. Steam rises from cracks in the pavement. Graffiti covers every inch of asphalt--a makeshift canvas for artists and vandals that became known as the "Graffiti Highway."

The town itself is mostly gone. Foundations mark where buildings once stood. Street grids remain visible in the overgrown lots. The occasional fire hydrant stands alone in the weeds.

The fire still burns. It now covers approximately four hundred acres beneath the town. Surface temperatures in some areas exceed 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection estimates the fire could burn for another two hundred fifty years.

Unless it finds a way into the remaining coal in the Mammoth Vein. If that happens, it could burn for a thousand.

The Numbers

• 1,100 people: Centralia population in 1962
• 5 people: Estimated current population
• May 27, 1962: The day the fire started
• 60+ years: How long the fire has been burning
• 400 acres: Current size of the fire
• 250 years: Estimated time until the fire burns out
• $42 million: Federal relocation funds (1983)
• 2,761: Peak population (1890)
• 800+ miners: Employed at peak
• 35-70 feet: Thickness of the Mammoth Vein coal seam

How to Visit

Centralia is still technically inhabited, and the remaining residents value their privacy. The famous Graffiti Highway (the abandoned section of Route 61) was covered with dirt in 2020 to discourage trespassing.

However, the town itself is accessible by public roads. Visitors can see the remaining street grid, abandoned church, and cemetery. Steam vents are occasionally visible depending on weather conditions.

Visitors should exercise extreme caution. Sinkholes can open without warning. Carbon monoxide and other toxic gases may be present. The ground can be unstable and dangerously hot.

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