The Town That Vanished Into the Earth Overnight

One moment it was a mining town, the next it was a smoking crater. What swallowed it was almost beyond belief.

In 1980, the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, began to disappear—literally. A coal seam fire accidentally ignited beneath the town and is still burning today, over 60 years later. The underground blaze, fed by vast coal deposits, caused the ground to crack, roads to melt, and toxic gases to leak from the earth. Residents started experiencing sinkholes opening underfoot, carbon monoxide poisoning, and buildings collapsing from below. By the 1990s, the government declared it unsafe and evacuated nearly everyone. Only a handful refused to leave. The fire is expected to burn for another 250 years.

“The highway buckled like it had been attacked by an earthquake—and there wasn’t a soul around.”

~ David DeKok, journalist and author of Unseen Danger

“It was like the earth had turned against us, inch by inch, year by year.”

~ John Coddington, one of the last residents of Centralia

“This was not a normal fire. This was a monster eating the world from beneath our feet.”

~ Ruth Ann Womer, former resident

“We learned that once an underground coal fire starts, it’s nearly impossible to stop.”

~ Dr. Ann Kim, geologist at Bucknell University

“The Centralia fire was a warning—about negligence, about nature, and about time itself.”

~ Prof. Robert Siegel, environmental historian

Knock-on effect: Centralia became the eerie inspiration for the horror video game and film Silent Hill. But more importantly, it forced governments around the world to reassess abandoned mine safety and underground fire risks. There are over 200 other underground coal fires burning around the world today—some older than Centralia, and far more dangerous.