Columbia County · Pennsylvania, USA
Centralia: The Ghost Town Still Burning Underground
A coal seam fire ignited in 1962 has burned beneath Centralia for over 60 years, turning a once-thriving mining town into a near-empty landscape of cracked highways and steaming ground.
Centralia was once a modest but bustling coal town of over a thousand residents in the Appalachian hills of Pennsylvania. In May 1962, an attempt to burn trash in a landfill sitting atop an abandoned mine ignited a coal seam deep underground, and the fire has never gone out. Toxic gases, sinkholes, and steam vents pushed the state to buy out and relocate most of the population through the 1980s and 90s, and in 1992 Pennsylvania condemned all buildings and revoked the town's zip code. Fewer than a handful of residents remain by legal right, grandfathered in until their deaths. What's left is an eerie grid of empty streets swallowed by forest, cracked and graffiti-covered stretches of abandoned highway, and wisps of smoke still rising from the ground, a slow-motion disaster that inspired the setting for the Silent Hill video game and film franchise.
How the Fire Started
In May 1962, the Centralia borough council hired firefighters to burn trash at the town landfill, a common practice at the time, ahead of Memorial Day. The landfill sat in an old strip-mine pit that connected to a maze of abandoned anthracite coal tunnels beneath the town. The fire was not properly extinguished, and it found its way into an exposed coal seam through a gap in the pit's protective covering.
Once the vein caught, there was no reasonable way to put it out. Anthracite coal fires can burn slowly for centuries once established, fed by oxygen seeping through cracks and mine shafts, and Centralia's fire spread steadily along the seams beneath the town over the following decades.
A Town Unravels
For years, officials and residents debated whether the fire was even serious. That changed dramatically in 1981, when 12-year-old Todd Domboski nearly fell into a sudden sinkhole that opened beneath his feet, releasing lethal carbon monoxide gas. The near-tragedy galvanized federal and state action.
In 1984, Congress allocated over 42 million dollars to relocate residents. Most accepted buyouts and left by the early 1990s. In 1992, Pennsylvania invoked eminent domain to condemn all remaining properties, and by 2002 the U.S. Postal Service revoked Centralia's zip code entirely.
The Last Residents
A small number of holdouts refused to leave. In 2013, following a lawsuit, the state reached a settlement allowing seven remaining residents to stay in their homes for the rest of their lives, with their properties reverting to the state upon their deaths. As of the mid-2020s, only a handful of people, sometimes cited as fewer than five, still call Centralia home.
Most of the town's structures were demolished, streets were dug up in places, and much of the grid has reverted to overgrown lots. Only a scattering of houses, a small cemetery, and a couple of churches remain standing amid empty foundations.
Graffiti Highway and Enduring Legacy
A stretch of the old Pennsylvania Route 61, closed and abandoned due to fire damage and buckling pavement, became known as 'Graffiti Highway,' covered in colorful spray-painted messages from thousands of visitors and dark tourists over the years. In 2020, the land's owner covered the highway with dirt to deter trespassing after it became a viral social media destination.
Centralia's fire is estimated by the U.S. Bureau of Mines to have enough fuel to keep burning for up to 250 more years. The town's story inspired the fictional town of Silent Hill in the horror franchise of the same name, cementing Centralia's place in pop culture as a real-world ghost town shrouded in smoke.
Fun facts
- The underground fire started in 1962 and could burn for another 250 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Mines.
- Centralia's population fell from over 1,000 in the 1980s to fewer than five residents today.
- The U.S. Postal Service revoked the town's zip code, 17927, in 2002.
- A near-fatal sinkhole incident involving a 12-year-old boy in 1981 spurred the federal government to act.
- The town partly inspired the setting of the Silent Hill horror video game and movie franchise.
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Text on this page is original Terralocate editorial. Background facts compiled from the public sources listed above. Images via Wikimedia Commons under their respective licenses (typically CC BY-SA or public domain).