In the year 1866 a mining town by the name of Centralia was founded in the state of Pennsylvania. At the high of Centralia’s prosperity in the 1890’s its population was around 2800 people. When the mid 1950’s hit the towns economy took a hit because of declined demand for coal energy. The main substance that was mined in Centralia for decades was Anthracite Coal (About, 2017). According to Siv Padhy “Anthracite, the rarest and most mature coal, accounts for only about 1 percent of the world’s total coal reserves” (Padhy, 2017). Anthracite can mainly be found in the Appalachian region of the United States and has the highest carbon content of all the different types of coal. In fact Pennsylvania has the highest anthracite concentrations in the US. Anthracite has been used in both steam powered and internal combustion engines to produce power. It is also used as a reduction agent in the process of metallurgy (Padhy, 2017).

The Centralia mine fire started by mistake when on May 27th, 1962 the fire department decided to set fire to the towns landfill to clean up for their memorial day celebrations. The garbage was burned and the firefighters put out the landfill with water but neglected to check that all the embers had been extinguished. This proved problematic because the town’s landfill was right above the old strip-mining pits. Because the garbage fire was not extinguished properly the fire spread down into the abandoned mines under the town. Since the mines were abandoned the fire was not discovered until it had moved directly under the city and several residence noticed smoke rising up from the ground. Efforts to control the fire were ineffective and ultimately failed. The mine fire continues to burn under the town of Centralia to this day (About, 2017).