In 1962, a seemingly harmless fire started at a landfill in the coal-rich town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. Residents believed the fire had been extinguished until 1979 when a local gas station owner discovered that his subterranean fuel tanks were alarmingly hot. State investigators arrived in Centralia in 1981 after a 12-year-old boy nearly fell into a vast sinkhole emitting toxic plumes of carbon monoxide. Scientists determined that the 1962 landfill fire had ignited an underground vein of coal, leading to an extensive subterranean blaze that might continue burning for up to 500 years. Beginning in 1983, a significant effort was […]

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