A week or so ago, in passing conversation, we mentioned we were visiting Centralia - and the people we were speaking to had no idea that this town has been all but abandoned, due to a 60 year old underground fire that cannot be extinguished and will likely burn for another 100-200 years. The film Silent Hill in 2006 was inspired by the events in Centralia and filmed in Virginia.
Today there are a few houses, with a handful of residents who fought to remain. It is the most famous of US Ghost Towns and has made the international press.
This was a world where no human could live, hotter than the planet Mercury, its atmosphere as poisonous as Saturn's. At the heart of the fire, temperatures easily exceeded 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit [540 degrees Celsius]. Lethal clouds of carbon monoxide and other gases swirled through the rock chambers [ David DeKok, Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986)]
This short video gives you a little more detail: https://youtu.be/NSIjB96H4Sc
We carefully criss-crossed some of the visible roads. The fire station sits lonely empty with a few houses. At the end of Big Mine Road, down the hill, we discovered a Geyser which can get as high as 15ft. Today it was a couple feet high.
The Geyser is on private land with a huddle of houses nearby. I left the car to take photos and was chased back by dogs, first you hear them, then you see them flying in your direction. Those that know me, know I don’t do running. If an Alsatian is barking and heading in your direction, you move. Luckily a fence held them back (I didn’t see the fence), you dont when you are running. Matt was super chilled out… he was in the car.
I took lots of photos of streets we passed later in the day on the way to the hotel. This is just one tracking our journey.
