Centralia, Pennsylvania, a former coal mining town, has experienced a relentless underground fire for nearly six decades.
The origins of this ongoing blaze trace back to 1962 when the town council made the fateful decision to incinerate a landfill. At the time, they were unaware that this landfill was interconnected with subterranean mine shafts. This inadvertent act ignited a coal seam, and the fire has persisted since.
Despite the considerable efforts made to extinguish the flames, Pennsylvania eventually abandoned its attempts, having spent $7 million in the 1990s without success.
Remarkably, despite the well-documented hazards, a small number of residents still inhabit Centralia. Due to the presence of coal deposits beneath the town, experts believe that the fire could potentially continue burning for another 250 years.
One of the lesser-known facts about Centralia, Pennsylvania, is that it has a unique geological feature called the Buck Vein Outcrop.
This is a natural exposure of coal that runs along a hillside near the town. The Buck Vein Outcrop is one of the few places in the world where coal can be seen on the surface without any mining or excavation. The outcrop is also one of the main sources of fuel for the underground fire that has been burning for decades.
The Buck Vein Outcrop was discovered by a farmer named John Buck in 1841. He noticed that his cows were attracted to a black substance on the ground that smelled like tar. He realized that it was coal and decided to mine it for his use.
He also sold some of it to his neighbors and other settlers in the area. The outcrop soon became a valuable resource for Centralia’s coal industry, as it provided easy access to high-quality anthracite coal. However, it also posed a risk of ignition due to its exposure to air and fire.
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