>Girardville North II” fire.
>fire that’s been burning for at least 19 years
>There are over a dozen active mine fires throughout the state of Pennsylvania.
When this one first hit the news back then, the earlier underground fire burning since 1962 was cited in such a way that people were kind of led to think it's not so unusual after all.
>the historic Centralia mine fire, which has been burning since at least May 27, 1962
I stopped by Centralia on a road trip, it's a bit of a "tourist destination" in the atlas-obscura sense.. It was a very weird place. Roads were buckled everywhere, smoke was coming out of cracks.. enitire neighborhoods were abandoned and houses missing, etc.
>I stopped by Centralia on a road trip, it's a bit of a "tourist destination" in the atlas-obscura sense.
Word is that old Rt 61 was covered with dirt during early 2020 to stop people going out there during Covid. AFAIK the rest of the stuff you mention is still there.
Orthogonal but the early 90s film Nothing But Trouble [0] starring Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, John Candy, and Dan Akroyd incorporates a likely Centralia-inspired mine fire into the overarching story. It's a ridiculous film but worth watching, they definitely don't make em like this anymore.
And for that I'm glad. Chevy Chase only did the film as a personal favor to Dan Akroyd. That movie is ridiculous alright, and as a younger person, nightmare fuel. It's grotesque on an almost-horror level.
It might not be for everyone, but this was one of my favorite movies growing up. You could make the same comment about Beetlejuice (of which I am excited they are making a sequel).
Why would Beetlejuice finally getting a sequel be something to get excited about? Every other decades-later sequel has sucked thus far, why would this be any different? What made it great was the zeitgeist of when it was made.
Just for clarity I'm not advocating for letting kids having sex with each other. I'm saying that it's normal for kids have crushes and feel attracted by other kids, feeling "butterflies" in their stomach when the girl or boy they have a crush notices then or whatever. That's perfectly normal and is part of what it means to grow up. It is fueled by hormones and that's all natural.
A hypersexualized society is one that short-circuits all this development and make it happen too fast and that's not good. A hyper-prude society is one that actively suppresses that and makes kids feel bad about what they feel and that can't be good either
You don't like that movies are made as personal favors? A lot of movies are made that way, seems like a weird reason not to like something so much that you not only avoid it yourself, you're glad others won't see it too.
I think these things might be more common than most people realise. I only learned recently that there's an illegal landfill that's been on fire for ten years in London:
My family are coal miners from that area for three generations (Kulpmont, PA). As a kid my uncle used to take us up to Centrailia to see the melted roads. My grandfather and two uncles had Black Lung. They used to strike and get beaten by the "police" for it.
The coal companies never cared and never will. I saw what they did to these communities. Now they are all suffering from the opioid epidemic[1]. Glad these two are doing some real local reporting.
My great-grandmother lost two (teenage) brothers in Pennsylvania mining accidents in the early 1900's. The coal companies were more than happy to grind through the expendable, cheap, often immigrant, population of the region.
Yes, when I was doing my ancestry i found several of my relatives death certificates where cause of death was "Mining Accident", and many of my family were also missing fingers.
These are the people who built the county, and what did they get...
My great-grandfather also perished in a mine collapse near Wilkes-Barre, PA, sometime in the 1920s. I remember my grandfather, who was still a child when it happened, telling me about how the miners were treated. He was forced to take a job selling fruit to support his mother and brother because the mining company refused to pay any death benefits. It's easy to forget how bad the working conditions once were, and I suppose still are in some places today.
My parents grew up squarely in coal mining country in south-western PA (Bentleyville, Cokeburg, Eighty-Four [home of 84 Lumber!]).
Dad's dad mined coal and Mom's dad worked in the companion industry (steel milling). Fortunately neither was seriously injured from it, but other friends and family members were not as fortunate.
Centralia, PA which is mentioned in the article, is also the inspiration for the town in the Silent Hill games/movie. The real-life town has been burning for 60 years at this point, and it's estimated that it could burn for up to 250 years.
This is incorrect —- American horror novels, particularly those by Stephen King and Dean Koontz, are the primary inspiration for Silent Hill. The game tips it’s hand on this —- many, if not all, of the streets in the first game are named after the authors (and in the case of King, they used his Bachmann pseudonym).
That said, the Centralia fire is a primary inspiration for the 2006 film adaptation of Silent Hill.
Oh, I had read about Centralia being the inspiration for the movie and assumed (or perhaps saw someone incorrectly claim) that it was also the inspiration for the game. Thanks for the correction!
Centralia has long been a bit of personal obsession of mine, so I had to double take seeing it on HN. I travel between northern Virginia and the Poconos fairly often and always hop off 81 to drive through Centralia whenever I have the chance--my most recent visit was actually earlier this week on Monday afternoon.
It's an eerily beautiful place. There's hardly any infrastructure to explore, but walking through the overgrown streets and sidewalks and seeing the concrete steps and wrought iron railings is quite sobering. The town has three fairly large cemeteries, all of which are kept in excellent condition. The Odd Fellows cemetery is adjacent to the dump where the fire started in the 60's and really paints a picture of how far back many of the families that lived there go. There are a number of Civil and Revolutionary War graves in Odd Fellows as well, easily identified by the small American flags planted at their base.
If you walk down the dirt road (2nd St), you'll encounter a number of 10 foot poles surrounded by iron cages intended to keep people away from what used to be extremely hot exhaust gases. Locals used to toss trash into the cages to watch it melt, but it's difficult to encounter an exposed hot spot anymore. There's some debate about whether the fire is actually still burning in the coal seams as the terrestrial evidence (steam rising from the rocks, barren patches of land that melts snow, etc) has become less visible in the past couple decades, but there are certainly still "warm" areas. I brought an infrared thermometer with me on a trip last year and found a spot in a rocky outcropping that topped out near 150*F. If you go looking, the most active areas are now located just off Big Mine Run Rd just before it turns up the hill towards town.
I'd encourage anyone who's interested to stop through if you're traveling along the I-81 corridor. The surrounding towns of Shenandoah, Ashland, and Mt. Carmel are hauntingly beautiful in a way that can only be found in Pennsylvania Coal Country. Most of the original inhabitants of Centralia relocated to these neighboring towns and many will gladly share their tales, often from first-hand experience. There's an incredible amount of history in the region that dates back hundreds of years. Some of it has been overshadowed by the fire, including the crash of United Flight 624 back in 1948[1]. The Disaster Area podcast has an excellent episode that covers the birth and eventual decline of Centralia, and the host is herself a resident of Carbondale where a smaller but active fire has been burning for about as long.
I'd be happy to share some recent photos if anyone's interested. Some of the more captivating images I've taken are of Big Mine Run, a small mine-fed creek that is bright orange, visible even at night, from all the iron oxide in the water.
Have you ever checked out the old school amusement park Knoebels[1] that's about 20 minutes away? I highly recommend it. We lovingly refer to it as "Chernobyls" (not b/c of the park itself, but b/c it rhymes with the park's name and b/c it's near Centralia).
Knoebels IS the best! Ride the cyclone and you’ll know what it’s like to get a free chiropractic adjustment from an amateur.
I grew up going there in the 70s. That place was magic to a teenager. I met a girl there once with my brother and she ate a whole cigarette and proceeded to vomit soon after. A number of times we jumped off the cars in the middle of the haunted house. And there was a time we bought stink bombs, little glass vials, filled with a putrid, smelling chemical, and busted it open in the middle of an arcade.
There is no entrance or parking fee to this amusement park as well. You only pay for the rides. And that’s still to this day true.
The last time I went there, they were still building this interesting new ride that has no mechanics, it’s almost like a slide and it’s all hand made out of wood. I think you’re going to ride carts down it.
And if you go there, 100% get the pierogies. you will not find any better anywhere.
> The surrounding towns of Shenandoah, Ashland, and Mt. Carmel are hauntingly beautiful in a way that can only be found in Pennsylvania Coal Country.
As I said in another comment, this are is where my mother was born (Kulpmont) but I have relatives in Shamokin and Mount Caramel as well.
This is a Polish side of my family and the culture that was very strong. I really miss those towns. We could walk into the polka hall and just watch people. Some of them would know us and give us a shot of vodka.
In Mt Carmel, we used to walk on the old slag heaps and look for crystals. There was a mountain. We actually called “Crystal Mountain“. And on the way to that site we used to walk over the creeks that are filled with sulfur and stunk like you couldn’t imagine.
it used to make me happy to remember these things but now it just makes me depressed since I know there’s probably nowhere left like that anymore.
How is the creek visible at night? I'd like to see pictures as well. This is the kind of niche writing blogs are/were great for, for some reason reading this reminded me of the bluefire/otherhand site.
https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...
The orange creek bed stands out vividly against the background and reflects light extremely well compared to the shale. It doesn't glow per se, but it gives that impression. I uploaded a few pictures if you're interested:
Wow, Centralia is about the last thing I expected to see discussed on HN! I am from the area as well - I remember in the early 90's, smoke would come out of the ground like some version of hell along Rt 61. I was in high school when that kid fell into a hole that just opened up under him.
It's a beautiful area, but this part of the Coal Region hasn't seen anything approaching prosperity for at least half a century. Not even fracking helped - the Marcellus Shale is all to the north and west.
46 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 96.7 ms ] threadfyi it is in Wikipedia for some time
>There are over a dozen active mine fires throughout the state of Pennsylvania.
When this one first hit the news back then, the earlier underground fire burning since 1962 was cited in such a way that people were kind of led to think it's not so unusual after all.
>the historic Centralia mine fire, which has been burning since at least May 27, 1962
Renewing the call to action to do nothing.
Part 2: https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-cou...
Part 3: https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-cou...
Part 4: https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-cou...
I stopped by Centralia on a road trip, it's a bit of a "tourist destination" in the atlas-obscura sense.. It was a very weird place. Roads were buckled everywhere, smoke was coming out of cracks.. enitire neighborhoods were abandoned and houses missing, etc.
Word is that old Rt 61 was covered with dirt during early 2020 to stop people going out there during Covid. AFAIK the rest of the stuff you mention is still there.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uOBF6r040U
Raising Arizona is another from that era which really clicked comedically for my young mind...
Riiight, the young, gothy, Winona Ryder had nothing to do with it.
9 year old me totally objectified her upon seeing this film, sue me.
I even ended up dating goth girls in my teens probably because of this movie.
But we have come to the point where we disapprove (rightly so) of those who put a 15 year old in the spot so that 9 year olds would objectify her.
Kids entering puberty will, guess what, enter puberty, and if they have eyes they'll have dreams
A hypersexualized society is one that short-circuits all this development and make it happen too fast and that's not good. A hyper-prude society is one that actively suppresses that and makes kids feel bad about what they feel and that can't be good either
The most surprising part of the story is in the second-to-last paragraph!
https://www.itv.com/news/london/2023-01-19/illegal-rubbish-d...
The coal companies never cared and never will. I saw what they did to these communities. Now they are all suffering from the opioid epidemic[1]. Glad these two are doing some real local reporting.
[1] https://www.northcentralpa.com/news/crime/mt-carmel-doctor-p...
These are the people who built the county, and what did they get...
Dad's dad mined coal and Mom's dad worked in the companion industry (steel milling). Fortunately neither was seriously injured from it, but other friends and family members were not as fortunate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania
That said, the Centralia fire is a primary inspiration for the 2006 film adaptation of Silent Hill.
https://twitter.com/user/status/1549948454272925697
It's an eerily beautiful place. There's hardly any infrastructure to explore, but walking through the overgrown streets and sidewalks and seeing the concrete steps and wrought iron railings is quite sobering. The town has three fairly large cemeteries, all of which are kept in excellent condition. The Odd Fellows cemetery is adjacent to the dump where the fire started in the 60's and really paints a picture of how far back many of the families that lived there go. There are a number of Civil and Revolutionary War graves in Odd Fellows as well, easily identified by the small American flags planted at their base.
If you walk down the dirt road (2nd St), you'll encounter a number of 10 foot poles surrounded by iron cages intended to keep people away from what used to be extremely hot exhaust gases. Locals used to toss trash into the cages to watch it melt, but it's difficult to encounter an exposed hot spot anymore. There's some debate about whether the fire is actually still burning in the coal seams as the terrestrial evidence (steam rising from the rocks, barren patches of land that melts snow, etc) has become less visible in the past couple decades, but there are certainly still "warm" areas. I brought an infrared thermometer with me on a trip last year and found a spot in a rocky outcropping that topped out near 150*F. If you go looking, the most active areas are now located just off Big Mine Run Rd just before it turns up the hill towards town.
I'd encourage anyone who's interested to stop through if you're traveling along the I-81 corridor. The surrounding towns of Shenandoah, Ashland, and Mt. Carmel are hauntingly beautiful in a way that can only be found in Pennsylvania Coal Country. Most of the original inhabitants of Centralia relocated to these neighboring towns and many will gladly share their tales, often from first-hand experience. There's an incredible amount of history in the region that dates back hundreds of years. Some of it has been overshadowed by the fire, including the crash of United Flight 624 back in 1948[1]. The Disaster Area podcast has an excellent episode that covers the birth and eventual decline of Centralia, and the host is herself a resident of Carbondale where a smaller but active fire has been burning for about as long.
I'd be happy to share some recent photos if anyone's interested. Some of the more captivating images I've taken are of Big Mine Run, a small mine-fed creek that is bright orange, visible even at night, from all the iron oxide in the water.
_____
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Air_Lines_Flight_624
[1] https://www.knoebels.com
I grew up going there in the 70s. That place was magic to a teenager. I met a girl there once with my brother and she ate a whole cigarette and proceeded to vomit soon after. A number of times we jumped off the cars in the middle of the haunted house. And there was a time we bought stink bombs, little glass vials, filled with a putrid, smelling chemical, and busted it open in the middle of an arcade.
There is no entrance or parking fee to this amusement park as well. You only pay for the rides. And that’s still to this day true.
The last time I went there, they were still building this interesting new ride that has no mechanics, it’s almost like a slide and it’s all hand made out of wood. I think you’re going to ride carts down it.
And if you go there, 100% get the pierogies. you will not find any better anywhere.
As I said in another comment, this are is where my mother was born (Kulpmont) but I have relatives in Shamokin and Mount Caramel as well.
This is a Polish side of my family and the culture that was very strong. I really miss those towns. We could walk into the polka hall and just watch people. Some of them would know us and give us a shot of vodka.
In Mt Carmel, we used to walk on the old slag heaps and look for crystals. There was a mountain. We actually called “Crystal Mountain“. And on the way to that site we used to walk over the creeks that are filled with sulfur and stunk like you couldn’t imagine.
it used to make me happy to remember these things but now it just makes me depressed since I know there’s probably nowhere left like that anymore.
https://imgur.com/a/VNnPxkB
It's a beautiful area, but this part of the Coal Region hasn't seen anything approaching prosperity for at least half a century. Not even fracking helped - the Marcellus Shale is all to the north and west.