Why Centralia, Pennsylvania Has Been On Fire For 50 Years - Earth.com

Why Centralia, Pennsylvania Has Been On Fire For 50 Years

09-01-2016

Why Centralia, Pennsylvania Has Been On Fire For 50 Years In 1962, an underground fire started in the coal-mining town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. Fifty-three years later, that fire still burns. In this week’s episode of Reactions, we explain the history and science behind the Centralia mine fire. Does anyone still live there? How could the fire keep burning for so long, and why hasn’t it been extinguished? From a chemical standpoint, what is fire, anyway?

Pennsylvania had passed a precautionary law in 1956 to regulate landfill use in strip mines, as landfills were known to cause destructive mine fires. The law required a permit and regular inspection for a municipality to use such a pit. 

Centralia is a monster fire, but these Ft. Worth firefighters believe they can eliminate this problem in a month . It is said that the Centralia Mine Fire probably began as an effort to clean up the dump that had been created on site.

However, the specifics of how the fire was started remain foggy, as setting fires to dumpsites was not technically legally allowed. It has caused most of the town to be abandoned: by 2017 the population had decreased to a very low five residents from around 1,500 at the time the fire started, and most of the buildings have been razed. Therefore the brush fires increased with toxic fumes and pushed a lot of the community out due to the fear of toxic gases and At its current rate, it could continue to burn for over 250 years.  Why Centralia, Pennsylvania Has Been On Fire For 50 Years also shown above is The problem of this fire has brought a lot of danger to the area and surroundings due to the high toxins in the gases being relased into the air.

 

 

American Chemical Society

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