Coal for Christmas

There is a town in Pennsylvania that has been on fire for forty-five years. The fire in Centralia started in a coal vein in 1962. Numerous attempts to extinguish the fire failed, and though there were a few cases of carbon monoxide poisoning, the true scale of the problem wasn’t discovered until 1979 when a gas-station owner decided to check the petrol level in one of his tanks. His fuel gauge seemed hot when he withdrew it, so he checked the temperature – which was a whopping 172 degrees F. Then a 12-year-old kid fell into a 150-foot sink hole that suddenly developed under his feet. Fortunately someone in his family had lightning reflexes, because he was saved before it was too late. Folks started moving away. In 1992 the state claimed eminent domain on the city and condemned all buildings. Its postal code was revoked in 2002. Nowadays, the fire still rages on in the subterranean coal vein, tipped off only by the steam and smoke that escapes through various sink holes and cracks in the empty streets. Some say the coal runs in an eight-mile seam that could burn for 250 years. The seam runs dangerously close to the nearby town of Ashland.