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A local TV station investigated an underground mine fire in Pennsylvania
- mistrial9 3y agogreat story and kudos for those involved in this.. fyi it is in Wikipedia for some time
- francisofascii 3y agoIs it? The Centralia fire is in Wikipedia, but this second "Girardville North II" fire does not seem to be.
- fuzzfactor 3y ago>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 Renewing the call to action to do nothing.
- hettygreen 3y agoPart 1: https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-country-some-wondering-if-underground-fire-spreading-toward-homes-businesses-in-schuylkill/article_1348f20a-acb1-11ed-8e27-d7b799b59df8.html https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-cou... Part 2: https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-country-what-pa-dep-has-to-say-about-underground-fires-in-schuylkill/article_52756aaa-ad81-11ed-8c7c-cbc5e0fd5cae.html https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-cou... Part 3: https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-country-schuylkill-man-who-lives-near-underground-fire-speaks-out/article_b1fc8056-ae4b-11ed-be7a-ef328514373b.html https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-cou... Part 4: https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/burning-coal-country-what-can-be-done-about-extinguishing-underground-fire-in-schuylkill/article_a8686f78-af13-11ed-9078-5b428666db65.html 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.
- nine_k 3y agoThat's exactly the kind of place where shooting video from a drone is likely the best way of reporting.
- i_am_jl 3y ago>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.
- pengaru 3y agoOrthogonal 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. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uOBF6r040U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uOBF6r040U
- numbsafari 3y agoChevy Chase using a car phone is worth it for the historical perspective.
- rhcom2 3y agoTupac's acting debut too
- geocrasher 3y agothey 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.
- mike_d 3y agoIt 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).
- pengaru 3y agoYou sir are someone I could probably enjoy a favorite movies marathon with. Raising Arizona is another from that era which really clicked comedically for my young mind...
- catminou 3y agoIs it going to be Beetlejuice goes Hawaiian like originally planned? (That was the actual pitch for several years)
- onychomys 3y ago> There are over a dozen active mine fires throughout the state of Pennsylvania. The most surprising part of the story is in the second-to-last paragraph!
- twic 3y agoI 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: https://www.itv.com/news/london/2023-01-19/illegal-rubbish-dump-fire-exposing-east-london-residents-to-toxic-fumes https://www.itv.com/news/london/2023-01-19/illegal-rubbish-d...
- FollowingTheDao 3y agoMy 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. [1] https://www.northcentralpa.com/news/crime/mt-carmel-doctor-pleads-guilty-to-operating-a-massive-pill-mill/article_dfa392fe-1d6c-11ec-b9e0-c76727259971.html https://www.northcentralpa.com/news/crime/mt-carmel-doctor-p...
- lc9er 3y agoMy 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.
- FollowingTheDao 3y agoYes, 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...
- bmc7505 3y agoMy 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.
- sokoloff 3y agoMy 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.
- itsananderson 3y agoCentralia, 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. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania
- ascagnel_ 3y agoThis 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. https://twitter.com/user/status/1549948454272925697 https://twitter.com/user/status/1549948454272925697
- itsananderson 3y agoOh, 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!
- csteubs 3y agoCentralia 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. _____ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Air_Lines_Flight_624 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Air_Lines_Flight_624
- GlibMonkeyDeath 3y agoWow, 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.