Town That Burned From Beneath

In May 1962, the town council of Centralia, Pennsylvania, hired volunteer firefighters to clean up the town landfill by setting it on fire. It was a routine procedure, but they made a fatal mistake: the landfill sat atop an exposed vein of coal that connected to a vast labyrinth of abandoned mines beneath the town. The fire didn't go out. It went down.



"The Town That Burned From Beneath" chronicles the slow-motion apocalypse that followed. For decades, the fire raged underground, heating the ground until tomatoes cooked on the vine and carbon monoxide filled basements. The government ignored the problem until a 12-year-old boy fell into a steaming sinkhole that opened up in his backyard.



Today, Centralia is a ghost town with a population of less than five. The fire is still burning and is expected to burn for another 250 years. This book is a terrifying look at an environmental disaster that cannot be stopped, exploring the incompetence of bureaucracy and the resilience of the few residents who refused to leave their burning homes.