You set off on your journey with complete peace of mind. You are listening to the local radio and suddenly you see a sign on the road. We pass hundreds of signs and posters as we travel, but there is something different about this one, something that warns us of a different danger. “The underground mines are burning. Walking or driving through this area could cause serious injury or death. There are dangerous gas fumes and the ground is prone to sudden collapse.”

That’s the welcome sign to Centralia, a small mining town founded in 1841 whose subsoil has burned for over 60 years, turning the town into a nightmare. A Hell on Earth that inspired horror stories like ‘Silent Hill’, with a small community that refuses to leave despite the dangers, leaving only when they die.

The fire is no closer to being extinguished and this is its story.

Centralia before the disaster

Like many other cities in the United States, Centralia is the result of land sales between Native Americans, settlers, banks, and the government itself. And like many North American towns, the city began to flourish with the discovery of underground treasure: in this case, coal.

Yes, in 1854 the ‘Mine Rust’ railway was built to transport coal and the first two mines opened in 1856. Three more mines opened between 1860 and 1863 and the town Reached peak population in 1890The city, with a population of 2,761, was a mining town, and those not employed in the coal industry ran one of the five hotels or one of the 27 taverns. It also had 14 stores, one bank, seven churches, and a post office.

From that point on, Centralia went downhill. World War I hit the mining industry hard as young men left to go to Europe. A disaster in 1929 forced the closure of five mines, but that didn’t stop clandestine miners from continuing to work the mines using techniques so unsafe that many tunnels collapsed.

The city would never regain its former glory, but coal continued to be mined, elementary and secondary schools were opened, and the industry appeared to be holding its own… By 1960, many of the mining companies had closed down and the railroad was shut down in 1966. Centralia’s downfall was due to an underground fire that is still active.

hell under the city

There are various theories about the origin of this fire, but there are two that hold some weight, although some disagree. The first is that in May 1962, the city council hired five volunteer firefighters to clean up the municipal dumpsite. This dumpsite was located near one of the mines, and when they were finished, the firefighters set fire to the dumpsite.

It’s something they’ve done in previous years as well, but this time the fire couldn’t be completely extinguished and it’s said that an unsealed opening in the mine allowed the fire, which went viral and fed dozens of interconnected fires, to enter, through passages and tunnels and filled with coal.

Another theory is that the fire broke out the day before, before firefighters set fire to the garbage. Along with the waste, one of the collectors threw hot ashes or coal It was thrown from the furnaces which caused the fire. Anyway, it was also a failure on the city’s part, because the clay barrier was supposed to be completed to prevent accidents but… it wasn’t.

So, whether one theory or the other is true, it is known that embers entered the mine through a coal seam and caused the fire. And interestingly, little attention was paid to this for years. In 1979, the mayor (and gas station owner) measured the fuel level in one of the tanks and when he removed the dipstick, he noticed that the fuel was very hot.

The climax came in 1981, when a 46-metre-deep well suddenly opened up and nearly swallowed a 12-year-old boy playing in a garden. Steam rose from the hole and analysis showed it contained: lethal levels of carbon monoxideAt this point the neighbors began to discuss what to do, but the underground fire continued to rage, and after $7 million was spent to stop it, the United States Congress appropriated another $42 million to relocate the residents.

Before the disaster…

…and later

Almost everyone accepted, but there were those who resisted despite the collapse of some buildings, the leveling of others, the broken roads and the deadly vapors rising from the ground. Postcode abolished in 2002 Until 2021, only five people lived in Centralia and they will continue to live there until they die. After that, the Government will have the rights to the houses and can tear them down or do whatever they want.

The fire currently covers 160 hectares and is expected to continue burning for another 250 years.

Silent Hill in real life

It’s almost a ghost town now, a municipality stuck in time. Warning signs of toxicity in the surrounding area and on unstable soil. There are those who warn about this underground fire, but since route 61 was closed and a ring road was built, there is no road passing through the town.

The few remaining houses, especially the semi-detached houses that no longer had another house next to them, had to be reinforced with some form of buttressing.

And if the story of Centralia sounds familiar, it may be because you’ve played the ‘Silent Hill’ video games and this story reminds you of it. In the games, different heroes find themselves in a ghost town where fog prevails and it occasionally snows. Those responsible may have been inspired by Centralia, but they deny it. more than once.

What is undeniable is that the film adaptation of the video game (2006’s ‘Silent Hill’) was clearly inspired by Centralia. There are many similarities in terms of story and aesthetics, with the abandoned mining town, underground fire, closed road, detour and ash falling instead of snow like in the video game.

The film’s screenwriters weren’t wrong to take inspiration from something like this, because a city with a hellish underground that will continue to burn for the next two centuries is such a fantastic story that it seems like a lie, but it’s not.

Pictures | JohnDS, Z22, Vasiliy Meshko, Brian W. Schaller, Codyrt

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