as someone who spent his childhood driving through Centralia every summer, i appreciate that this wasn't like the other Centralia videos. it didn't talk about the town being some 'cool spooky place to visit,' it didn't try to spin it as some 'scary' place, it just told the history honestly. Centralia as it stands now isn't anything special, you hardly ever even see steam/smoke rising from the ground like i remember seeing as a child. it's just a sad place, really.
I was afraid to pass through Centralia as a child living in Schuylkill County. I just remember the grown-ups talking about it and being afraid that our car would just disappear into the ground.
My family travels back to Centralia every time we visit family (my mom lived there when this occurred) and you actually can still see the smoke rising from the ground in certain areas. They try to keep them fenced but people still go over pretty often
@@xxbreadpine10 I'm guessing it makes your mom sad to see her town like this. My little town of Mahanoy City is really falling apart and that saddens me so I can't even imagine how this must feel 💔 .
There is a mine fire in Germany at the Meißner mountain that has been burning since the 1700s. At certain spots, you can smell the distincive stench of burning lignite, hence the rocks in the area gained the nickname "stinking stones". A few years ago, part of the forest had to be closed for public access when the fire had burned through an outcrop of a coalbed. Shortly after, it had reached an old mining building that had been a popular rastaurant catering to day trippers for more than a century, called "Schwalbenthal". The ground became so unstable that it was declared unsafe to stay inside. However, it is still standing, and the premises, including a beer garden with a gorgeous view over the surrounding area, are now a lost place.
A coal seam has been burning near a place called Dudweiler in the German state of Saarland since 1668. In 1770, Goethe visited the "Burning Mountain" and reported about it in his work "From my Life: Poetry and Truth". During my childhood in the 1960s, there was still a lot of smoke coming out of cracks in the mountain. Today there is hardly anything left to see. After 356 years the seam has apparently burned out.
My mom used to drive a "bookmobile" whose route passed through Centralia while it was still mostly occupied. She said it was always eerie how the town looked totally normal, but with large plumes of white smoke billowing from the pavement in the winter.
@@DebNKY I think she only has a Facebook account that she uses to follow victorian home groups. I keep telling her that she should start a blog recounting all of the old homes she's seen!
well, that is how things are done, you can't say in 10 minutes that you will use thousands of dollars on a plan no one knows if it will work or not time is important but also know if your efforts will work or will be just a waste of time and money tbh, i think it was not doable to put out the fire and save centralia
Not quite. The real delay was the local politicians asking, "how can I get rich off this." This is when you call in your cousin who does construction to put in a bid ten times the cost, and try to ram it through. So basically the entire Trump presidency, at a much smaller scale of course.
The only really interesting tidbit you missed was when they truly realized it was a problem that would necessitate leaving was when a gas station owner realized the gas in his underground tanks was at a dangerously high temperature. Always an interesting story and I echo what others have said - do not go there to visit. It is unstable ground with toxic fumes.
Oh, and the reason they know it's not an extension of the bast fire is because some dude and his son were operating an illegal mine in between there and Centralia and the guy was like "oh yeah no we'd be dead" and went back about his business 🤣
As long as you don't say it inspired the Silent Hill games. Sucks it's not really much else but a unwanted tire dumping town now. Last time I went that's all that was there. Trash and the highway, that is now covered up with dirt.
This is actually the first time I’ve ever heard of a “mine fire.” It’s tragic to see what an adverse effect something like this can have on so many people. And also ironic considering the town’s own livelihood eventually became its downfall
And it's driven the price of coal up. That coal could have kept the entire US supplied for years at a reasonably cheap price. Because it's all just completely f****** wasted we have to get coal from elsewhere and ship it in. It makes me angry to see it all just wasted because someone was too lazy to properly seal a mineshaft and someone else was too lazy to make sure it was sealed before dumping garbage there.
There’s a similarly eerie story from Western Australia. An old mining town named Wittenoom used to house 20,000 people and was profitable due to the huge deposits of blue asbestos contained in the mine-shafts nearby. The mines were closed in the 1960’s due to decreasing profit and the town slowly dwindled until a couple decades later when due to the increased research into and knowledge of the harmful affects of asbestos fibres, the government of WA closed down the entire town. Only 3 people continue to call Wittenoom home despite the governments attempts to remove them.
I was born and raised in Philadelphia and went hunting with my Father not far from Centralia several times starting in the early 70’s. I got to see a town slowly die. It was sad. Once a beautiful little town became a wasteland.
One thing I adore with this channel is how it uses music - having a window of silence and just hearing the narration gives more weight to the story, and when there *is* music, it's never overpowering. Superb content as always!
A topic suggestion: The sinking of the SS Principessa Mafalda in 1927. Even though it is the largest ocean liner accident ever in the southern hemisphere, there is very little coverage of it, on UA-cam or elsewhere.
Why do something relatively obscure when you can do another upload on an event already covered a hundred times by other channels? I'm not even going to watch this. Done so many times I could near write a book on it from memory.
I actually met the reporter who actually "broke" this story nationwide, when he came to give a lecture at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, where I used to work. Absolutely fascinating.
there's a suburb near St. Louis where nuclear material was illegally dumped and a fire has been steadily creeping through the dump towards it. the people whose kids are ALL sick from the shit from the dump that's next door to a fucking school have had to fight the hemming and hawing government as well as the waste company who's, btw, owned by Bill fucking Gates to do SOMETHING about the fire about to nom nom up some nuclear waste
My mom lived here when she was a kid and her family had to relocate one this happened. She knew the kid who almost died in the sinkhole. We still go back and visit the land (which is barren now) every few years. She can still point out where all the buildings where; It makes her very emotional. And the fire is still going to this day!! The government did not treat the people there properly once they made everyone move, didn’t compensate them properly and this could’ve been avoided in the first place. This town will always have a special place in my families heart. Thanks for doing a video on it! Seemed pretty accurate.
Yea, definitely the mining company or whomever was contracted to seal the mine who is at fault. I'm not a fan of burning garbage, but you really can't blame it on the dump cleaners.
I've seen countless videos about Centralia, yet as usual FH brings his own brand of interesting dare I say FASCINATING commentary to this topic. He could read the phone book and make it sound intriguing and sinister. My FAVORITE yt channel!!
Ive seen other people on UA-cam talk about this too, and I totally agree that this was still worth to watch !! A good storyteller who gets the facts right, that I can’t say no to 🤩
There was once a US senator who read out the entire phone book of Washington DC aloud for a day and a night as a filibuster to prevent a bill from being passed. If FH had been that senator it would have made for an interesting 24 hours on CSPAN.
Brilliant coverage as always. I've seen too many videos or comments that treat the residents like they're idiots, like the average person should just be able to move on a whim or know what's happening beneath the ground. Thank you for giving the residents the respect and care they deserve 💫
I wouldn’t consider the average resident in 1965 or even 1970 an idiot. As for people still living there in the 80s or even still living there now? Yeah, morons. How the fuck is moving within two generations, “moving on whim?” “Well this all started in my grandpas time. Of course it’s so hard to move on a whim. Maybe by the time my own grand kids are adults they’ll be ready to move...” Please. Gtfoh. People always act like it’s SO hard to move. It’s not. It’s hard. But it’s something people do every day. Single parents with like 1000 $ in their bank account and two kids move cross country every day. For much less pressing reasons than literal poison pouring into their homes, their work, their child’s room, their child classroom. Not just idiots. I’d say anyone who still was living there with their kids past say 1975 was committing active child abuse and should of had their children taken away by the state to a place they weren’t being poisoned every day simply because their parents were too stubborn or lazy or stuck in their ways or nostalgic to move... The excuses we make for people. Decades to get your shit together and move the fuck away from that death town. That’s insurmountable?
Anyone who places the importance over a place over their own personal welfare and their children’s. Anyone who chooses a place over people. Yeah I have words for you. Some people get way to hung up on places. “But this is my home...” I hate to be cliche but home is where the heart is. Centralia is just a place. A horribly shitty place. Clinging to a twin is just as silly and reprehensible as clinging to an intimate object. It’s like choosing a car over your children. But for some reason this particular neurosis, this damn near psychopathy gets a pass. “But those are those people’s homes!” Really. It’s not what’s important in life.
As for you saying the average person didn’t know what was going on beneath the ground. They certainly did. It wasn’t a secret. And even if it was, the poison smoke billowing from cracks in the street, the heat and melted snow, the headaches, the carbon monoxide alarms and checks and advice to keep your windows up, the fucking sink holes opening up to hell... These are clues no?
@@benhaney9629 If you found out that you suddenly had to move and would never able to move back, do you really think that you’d, assuming that there weren’t any major cost issues, be able to do it? One’s personal attachment to their home is much bigger than you estimate.
God, I love your outro so fucking much. They way it ends with your final thoughts on the event with a crescendo of the song slowly rising, ending with no words but the music at its highest volume, leaving the spectator to take in all that happened and reflect on what they learned. Gives me chills every time, one of my favorite reasons to come back to your videos.
Centralia is 10 minutes down the road from me. My town is on the same path but at a slower rate. In another 50 or so years my town will suffer the same fate. The town itself is still very creepy. There's still a church that stands with a small cemetery attached to it so when it's really cold out the steam and smoke rolling over the graves can make it look like a genuine horror movie set. Edit: the video game Silent Hill is based off of Centralia's setting, hence the creepy fog all over the town with erie noises
Weird question from a non American: if the fire is underground could it not spread across the entire state or states? May be stupid but was always curious about that …..
@@CantdoitWontdoit I am not an expert on mine fires but I think it can only go as far as the mines/coal deposits that are on fire. So it can cover a wide area but it can’t go past the where the mines are because it needs both the oxygen and coal to burn. Not all the local rock is coal and I don’t think a coal fire burns hot enough to set standard bed rock on fire.
@@CantdoitWontdoit it's the coal vein that's on fire so the fire will only spread as far as the coal vein spreads. My area is rich in coal though so the real problem comes in stopping one fire from spreading to another vein. My town sits next to what was for the longest time the world's largest man made mountain...it's entirely made out of coal and dirt removed from mines. Edit: Hitler once had plans on bombing my little town first if the nazis ever crossed the ocean. We were the largest producers of coal so shutting us down would've shut down the entire country's factories and infrastructure
Crazy thing is this isn't even the only active mine fire in Pennsylvania, there's 37 more active coal mine fires in the state according to the Department of Environmental Protection.
Ahh...and here I thought all of the people publicly urinating Philadelphia was because they were gross, uncivilized pigs, but as it turns out...they're just trying to put out all of the raging underground mine fires that apparently plague the state. It's like my dear old grandmother used to always say; "you should never judge a crusty, pissing book by it's greasy cheese steak befouled cover" and never have her words rung more true.
@@Stevie-J I guess if I had known better, I would’ve understood that putting out fires as soon as possible is not sound practice. We need to do it the way the town of centralia did, there’s a success story right there.
My fiancé’s dad is from the next town over so a few years back when we were visiting his parents we went to Centralia. I had no idea what the place was but he showed us around the town. The worst thing to me was the rivers which at the time were still this horrible orange yellow color. It’s a sight to see!
The orange/yellow/reddish color you see is not a result of the fire. It’s caused by an iron sulfide mineral called pyrite. When it is exposed to air and water it creates a combination of sulfuric acid and iron. You’ll see this same effect in the waters all around the coal regions of Pa.
Just as a small point of contention: I wouldn't call this a "single, careless burn." I'd call it "careless securing of a mineshaft". The men who burned the material might have set tge fire, but I can't say whether or not they hold any responsibility for the situation of the mineshaft below the area being burned. Maybe they should have known about it, maybe not. Whoever should have sealed up tha mineshaft, in my opinion, is the underlying cause of the fire. Secondary responsibility lay with the townships ineffective management of the situation. The workers were simply hired to do a task that had been done multiple times in the past - they sound to have been hired to carry out a task, a task that they were improperly briefed on. Maybe they should have asked, but the town absolutely should have made the poteinal risks clear to them prior to the job.
I live on the west side of Pennsylvania, and this is the stuff of nightmares for me. My uni is in an area that is surrounded by/above abandoned mines, and sinkholes are a fear of mine.
Lose ground or cracks in the ground should be avoided in an area wjere sinkholes can suddenly snag a person up. I'm sure, of course, you must already know this.
I grew up in SW PA and I remember going to a neighboring school for a dance in middle school. I thought it was so cool that they had a sunken/step down gym. But what I had assumed was an interesting architectural feature in the dark was in fact a 6" drop caused by the school incrementally collapsing into the underlying defunct mine. They closed and demolished the building within a year or two. Gave me nightmares for awhile!
Centralia has fascinated me for years, apparently it was thought at one time in the 1970s that the fire might have burned itself out since there were no longer any obvious signs. Then one day a guy who ran a petrol station measured the temperature in his underground fuel tanks and realised they were almost 700 degrees…
According to Google*: Gasoline's flashpoint is at about -49°F (or -45 °C). Depending upon the composition of the fuel and other conditions, this can vary slightly. But, this fuel is reliable as a combustible fuel and easier to ignite than other fuels, like kerosene. .... 700°F?! Though with gas at room temp as it often is for lawnmowers and such .... not sure what that flashpoint means, exactly. I would've assumed it's the temperature where it bursts into flame. Ok, further according to Google*: The flash point of a volatile material is the lowest temperature needed to evaporate enough fluid to form a combustible concentration of gas. Gasoline has a flash point of -45°F and an auto-ignition temperature of 536°F. * = site/information chosen as Google's preferred answer.
@@tonwhelan People were racing and using quads on it, it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt, and emergency crews would have difficulty getting to it.
Because people do not race around on quads everywhere. Imagine shutting down everything because someone may get hurt. Literally race around on the highway here. I live near Centralia. This was a bullshit excuse.
I think I'm going to dig in on this thought: Centralia was faced with an emergency, an existential threat, that they didn't RECOGNIZE as an emergency and an existential threat. We tend to have that problem as individuals and as groups. We don't realize we're staring down the barrel of threats until it's too late.
Yes, we can accept information that is within a certain range of our current reality, and beyond that it implies a drastic change of reality that is unpalatable to bear, because it is - in this case, literally - like the ground on which we stand and the fabric of our reality being torn from under our feet. And so we tend to either dismiss it or look for justifications for disbelieving the evidence. And another fact involved is that many, many people are very poor at grasping the inevitable implications of a compounded sequence of events. Many humans are more like pigeons in that they react to threats based on immediate proximity, rather than like crows, who react to threats based on trajectory.
@@vivalaminion2936 Actually, a wide variety of things, including a CCTV video from a far eastern country where a man came up to two men talking on the street and tried to assassinate one of them. But the gun jammed, and while he was trying to unjam it, one man ran away but the guy who was the target of the assassination acted bewildered as if thinking, "What are you doing?". The assassin successfully unjammed the gun and shot him. Many people don't like hearing about problems with HIV and AIDS science either. They've got too much invested in it, emotionally. It's the same when you describe errors in translation of the Bible as well. People don't like change to the very fabric of their reality.
Was lucky enough to go there as a kid in the late 90's when the fire was still pretty active. Seeing the vent holes pour out steam and other gasses was crazy. There were still more buildings left back then and my dad talked to some of the remaining hold-out residents. Areas of the ground were too warm to touch. Such a cool memory, I'm glad my dad took that detour.
Well, Centralia is in the very coal rich belt of the region. And when mined, the technique was room and pillar, which leaves behind a significant portion of coal to support the earth above. Add to that, oxygen is slow to reach burn points, which results in a very slow moving, smoldering burning of coal. Over all that time, just going by the areas visibly affected on the surface, it probably hasn't even spread beyond a couple square miles. It has the ability to burn for thousands of years, only stopped if every direction it's spreading, the vein pinches out.
@@ElementofKindness my dad who has been a coal miner under and above ground for 30 years said more than likely it hit water level under ground. I only live a few miles from there outside of Ashland and it hasn’t been smoking or anything for a couple years. And something people don’t know it’s not the coal burning it’s the rock and methane gas burning.
I think you should look into the Kingman, Arizona propane explosion from the 1970s. A fairly obscure yet monumental disaster. There’s actually raw footage of it here on UA-cam shot by a guy on his rooftop miles away. Huge explosion that completely changed a very small desert town and is still used as an example in safety training courses.
Back when I was in college we had a class on movie making and had to shoot our own movie. We ended up using Centralia as our backdrop and just exploring the town was a wonderful experience. It was such a beautiful place and going there in the middle of winter was so weird with how it felt like a nice spring day. The graffiti highway was also really cool to walk down and just see all the art. I think back then there were only 10 people living there still. One of those experiences I'll remember for lifetime.
Very cool! I guess it's like walking through a scene out of "The Twilight Zone". You can imagine seeing children on the playground equipment or a movie playing at the Drive-In theater.💓
Graffiti "art" is pure trash "art". It shows you how pathetic, simplistic and stupid average human beings are. ALL THE UGLINESS of human species is shown in graffiti, made by average human beings. Why would you sincerely approve of such poisoning of our surroundings is beyond any reason. It is horrible sight to see that "art". It reminds of how worthless our species truly is. How blind average human being is to his own worthlessness.
@@vidura damn , dude. Who hurt you? One person's"art" is indeed another person's trash. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.. You seem to not behold, and that's okay.. Hope your day gets better.❤️
Local here! They recently covered up Grafitti Highway (about a two mile stretch of old Route 61), and apart from two private cemeteries and the Orthodox Church (still does Sunday mass last I heard), there really isn't much left to the place at all. There are a few patches of sidewalk still crumbling, but for the most part Nature has reclaimed what was left of the town. A shame, honestly. I used to love going hiking there in the summer, and I know a lot of my neighbors liked running their ATVs and dirtbikes in the woods out there.
Hey, I think you should cover the Sidoarjo Mud Flow Disaster. It's a really interesting albeit tragic story from my home country, and I think nowadays a lot of people have forgotten the incident even in my own country. As always, love your channel bruh!
Oh yeah, that Mud Vulcano is surely the most important cautionary tale for any fracking operation. Too bad its happened on Third World Country, or is it Second World?
I grew up hearing about this since it was on the way to see my grandparents. This was the first competently accurate telling outside print, thank you. Thank you for always telling accurate tales!
The story of Centralia has fascinated me for years. It is such a tragic tale, and one that continues on even today. As dangerous as it is, I would love to visit one day.
This is so very sad this fire continues to this day . It is fascinating but baffles me on why it's still burning .......an even in these modern times no way to stop it .
According to the Department of Environmental Protection, the Centralia fire will continue to burn for the next 100 years. That's crazy to think about. Centralia Fire: 1962 - 2121
I spoke with members of DEP in 2017 about the fire. While it is still burning, it is no longer under the town. It has been out from under the town for a while at that time, so the town could be reinhabited safely, as per DEP.
Its moved north, quite a few miles away from Centralia. I live about 30 minutes from there, and can tell you if you were walking there, you'd never know there was a fire there once. The town has been demolished almost entirely save for the fire house. All youll see is empty plots of land with driveways, and normal roads.
@@TinkSalsa the buildings were unstable on their foundations due to all of the sinkholes generated. As soil and rock settled into the space left by the burnt up coal, all of those buildings would have eventually fallen down.
We had the Hazelwood coal mine fire here in Victoria Australia a few years ago. It only burned for several weeks but it was mentioned that it could burn for years or decades. You should do a video on the Westgate bridge collapse in Melbourne, it was the anniversary recently
It's funny you should mention the West Gate Bridge. My neighbours house extention (from 1981) was drafted by an architect who was involved in the west gates construction. And when my neighbour heard this she obviously showed some expression of horror and the architect quickly exclaimed "the second one!" She told me this story about 20 minutes before the Melbourne cup this afternoon 😂 Long story short, I would also love to see a short doco on the bridge collapse!
Thanks for covering this story! I’m nearly addicted to your channel because you just give us details and facts, no bs, and in turn you’ve caught our attention. It’s so weird that I hadn’t heard this story before. Then again, I guess that the city doesn’t want to feel too embarrassed about the fact that they were being penny-wise and pound-foolish. They could have invested thousands instead of having to bail out an entire town. As well, why would they start fires intentionally knowing that there were mines below? Couldn’t they have taken waste to another town entirely for disposal? I have no freaking clue how things got do out of control but feel bad for the innocent citizens of the place.
Indeed Centralia is one of the best examples of how not to extinguish a coal mine fire. But it was also a good "case study" for different extinguishing methods. One main problem of the Centralia mine fire is the room and pillar minig method, where approx. 50% of coal stay in place, perfectly ventilated by the surrounding room. As a former member of the sino-german coal fire initiative I had the opportunity to study extinguishing methods from all over the World. In the USA, India and China over 300 smaller and bigger fires are still burning - and can only be extinguished with adequate funding, a lot of maschine and man power and last but not least a lot of patience...
I've van camped in Centralia a couple of times now. It's eerily quiet except for the occasional local, walking a dog. I've heard that they're planning to demolish what's left of the highway to discourage trespassing after dark and further vandalism (not my words; I love some of the art on that pavement).
They had to bury the original highway that had to be bypassed since people just can't visit anything without trashing it and spray painting Everything including the trees and rocks.
This is my favorite disaster channel on UA-cam. You always pay a great amount of respect to the victims, and you don’t rely on theatrics, obnoxious screaming, or “spooky” edits to tell the stories. Thanks for another great video!
This was absolutely heartbreaking for the residents of Centralia. I learned about this a few years ago. It started just two months before I was born. It's a testament to the resistance to change. Some residents left and were seen as pariahs, but they felt their safety and health were at stake. The government didn't skimp on what they offered residents and those who left were able to buy a much nicer place. There were sticklers who stayed and died off or eventually were forced out. But they were grooming a horse that had been dead for years and they couldn't move on.
This is literally unbelievable. In a world of information overload I have never seen anything about Centralia. This really was fascinating horror at its best (or worst).
Yay, a story I was already fascinated by, documented by Fascinating Horror! This is an amazing piece of history. It's a shame they got rid of the Graffiti Highway, though :(
It's a double edged sword for the locals. Brought tourism but also liter and vandalism became a big problem. Eventually the land was bought and the owner for safety reasons shut it down. He originally wanted to keep it available to the public but people just got worse so ge covered the whole thing with dirt. Maybe 300 years from now someone will dig it up and wonder why so many penises and boobs were painted on a road designed for vehicles lol
@@2ndTooth The locals really hated the tourists honestly. My friend is a reporter and interviewed them a few years ago, she had a hard time finding anyone who would even talk to her.
This is the first time I've ever seen a video about Centralia in which the chain of events was explained clearly and succinctly. Until now, I have had a vague idea of what happened, but not the full story. Evidently, it took Fascinating Horror's unique style to help me grasp it all without any ambiguity.
Thank you for this respectful coverage. A number of documentaries I have seen treat the Centralians as if they were idiots not to know right away what was going on beneath their feet. The loss of this town is very sad as there was nothing that could be done after a very short time to save it. Completly different than the many US towns that have had to be abandoned due to man-mad pollution problems (Love Canal)
I find it so frustrating when people so casually dismiss how hard this kind of situation was. Unless they were being regularly informed, how on Earth would the be able to know the severity of the situation. More than that, I often see people underestimating how difficult or it is to *leave.* Completely uprooting your life is difficult AND expensive, and as mining town I would presume the people most effected were not making a ton of money. In the end, it was the mandate and the government buying them out that gave people that ability. Some might have known what was happening and just couldn't leave.
They polluted the town with fire. That is one of the worst kinds of pollution. I would much rather have my yard full of paper cups and potato chip bags than a bunch of fire.
I’ve seen a bunch of videos about Centralia and not one of them mentioned the landfill as the reason for its demise. Great video as usual, filling in details that others miss out for the sake of “spookiness”
Leave it to Fascinating Horror Channel to teach me the Centralia fire was manmade and preventable. I was always led to believe it was a natural occurance, but had it not been for the mine shafts dug, and the practice of landfill burning in the same location, it would have never been an issue.
I went to centralia in Spring 2019 and it was a great time! It was surprisingly full of visitors who brought along ATVs and dirt bikes and were just freely exploring the old town
I believe this is the town that helped inspire the first couple of Silent Hill games (and is a pretty big part of the first movie). There's no coal fire but images the abandoned, smoky town were a major source of inspiration. I could be wrong about it being Centralia but I think I remember it being this town specifically.
Yes~! As a native Pennsylvanian, I'm so happy you did a video on Centralia! It's a place that has always fascinated me. Awesome video, love it! Also, 686k subs?? I swear last time I looked you were at 666k (LOL). And I remember subbing to your channel when you only had a couple thousand subs. I'm so stoked for you! You deserve it. 1 mil will be here in no time! ♥
Another superb presentation. FH never disappoints. On a side note, it's interesting to consider that since I was born in September of 1962, this fire has burned every moment of my life to the present.
Typical bureaucrats covering their arses instead of taking action. Rather than worrying about permits (just what kind of people need permission to put out a fire & save a whole town anyway?) they should have just authorised the work immediately. Better to ask forgiveness after than gain permission before.
Equivalent analogy. A heart attack patient waits at the hospital. Surgeons," Let's get the manuals out. Let's discuss payment." It is an emergency. We don't need bureaucracy.
@@bruhbruh-us6gl You can’t just instantly start work on a project funded by the government. There are many checks and balances that are in place in order to cut down on corruption. The work and amount has to be approved by elected officials and that can take a long time. You don’t just jump into something funded by the state, there is a long process for that, and for good reason. Maybe someday when you grow up, you’ll learn that. But then general public morons couldn’t blame the government for anything and everything if they knew more about it
@@kingssuck06 Okay. So what do cities do when there's an emergency? For instance, I live on the edge of a big city. Last year (?) a major water main broke. We're talking a main that's easily over 8 feet tall? The main flooded a freeway at rush hour. The lack of clean water shut down huge parts of the city, IIRC a million people were out of service. The medical center was doing emergency services only as they were on bottled water...it's a giant collection of hospitals. ...This city, if you include outlying areas, is over 4 million people. That main was fixed in a couple of days. The city did not fcuk around. ...Yes, this IS a big city. They both have WAY more money and way more responsibility, because waaay more people. But the Centralia city council failed to read an emergency _as an emergency._ So they didn't respond correctly. This happens a lot. It's common human behavior in both individuals and governments. It's... highly unfortunate.
I live in Pennsylvania near coal waste dump atop a abandoned mine. You can see small amounts of smoke coming from small holes in the ground. The whole state might as well be superfund site. The dump also has a large creek running through the middle of it.
What a lot of people don't realize is that bituminous coal can self-ignite under certain conditions when it's piled up. In the days of coal-powered ships, this was a serious danger.
I had family who lived near Centralia and have been there several times. In the early 80s, it looked quite sad and depressing. But by the early 2000s, all sorts of plants and wildlife were flourishing and it had become a sort of tourist attraction and playground for ATVs and such. Much of the fire had already burned past this original location.
Last year, I made my first of what has now been several trips to Knoebel's, a family amusement park in north-central PA. While I have not done so, I could take a path that leads me straight through Centralia. I have long considered doing so, as I'm genuinely curious what it looks like today.
Don't listen to all these people who are trying to scare you about going. Next time you take the trip, go to Centralia! There are two main roads right through town, there are still some living there who love to tell the story of their town and have scrapbooks and photo albums to show you of how things used to be and they know all the safer areas. Graffiti highway has been officially closed off sadly due to people not respecting the area, but there's still so much interesting stuff to see. Honestly, if the fires are still burning underground anymore it's hard to tell. When I was a kid (I'm 33 now) we used to go to Centralia to walk around once a year and there was always a ton of smoke coming from holes in the ground, and it was a lot more risky then. Nowadays I even go searching for vent holes and smoke, especially in the areas I visited as a kid and cannot see any, smell any, or feel the warmth anymore. You could put your hand up to a hole and feel the heat from the fires back then. I think it's finally burned through almost all of the coal deposits that were in that mine and the fires are finally starting to die out. Also, in one of the first photos he showed in this video, in the upper left side of the photo you can see a big white church, while there are way more trees and overgrowth to the land nowadays, you can find the road that leads to that church. The church is still there and still in use to this day! There's a small neighboring town that overlooks where Centralia was and they use that church. If you can find the road to it, leading just off the main road through town, it gives a spectacular view of the entirety of Centralia.
God, Centralia fascinates me so much, and I'm so glad to finally see a video from you on it. I read an official document about it some years back; they estimated that it'll continue to burn for at LEAST another 200 years, and the amount of water it would take to put it out is greater than or equal to the Atlantic Ocean. Wouldn't be surprised if that's been upgraded to Pacific-Ocean-amounts by now.
Love your videos - you always have great respect while discussing tragic events. I've been following your for about a year (or maybe a little more) and still enjoy them. Congrats on the 700k!
This is a town in my state. People still see smoke coming up every once in a while. I think the area is down to one homeowner that refused to leave. I can’t imagine the horror this town went through. Well done on this story. I learned parts I hadn’t heard before. Specifically on the negligence of the initial burn.
I’ve got a co-worker who said that we should turn Centraila into a geothermal power plant. After all, if it’s going to burn for 200+ years, we may as well use it for something. Considering the feds and state have yet to put it out, let’s use it for some good.
@@herseem Its worse than waste. Its releasing poisonous gases the equivalent to people burning coil without any filters, so even worse than coal plants. Centralia alone releases more radiation trapped in coal through those gases than the entire US nuclear power plants combined.
Native of NEPA here. I went to Centralia on a field trip in elementary school, had to have been between 1995-1997. The thing I remember most clearly was watching a sneaker melt on the bare pavement. I've since gone back with a group of friends in the early 2010s when a few people were still around. Saw the poisonous gases venting from cracks in the ground, the sinkholes, etc. We also visited the Lost Highway (also pictured in the video) before they dumped a bunch of dirt and gravel all over it to keep people from driving on it. There was a sinkhole we saw on the highway that had to be at least 15 feet deep. They've since bulldozed most of the buildings in the main town area so there's not much to see anymore except ruins, and the old graveyard (which is fenced in).
I live around the area and honestly, the more interesting part of Centralia was Graffiti Highway. It was a cool place to legally paint graffiti for a long time, but was buried last year
I think it's still worth visiting. I drove from NC to see it. There are some openings in the ground and in the side of hills in the woods where steam is still coming out. I enjoyed filming it and other aspects of the former town.
It was worth visiting when you could view the whole highway but the dicks covered it in dirt piles... Non the less its still cool to see a tiny almost abandoned town with smoke coming from ground in places.
Pretty good video on the topic of Centralia. A fair amount of information within this production that I never knew about. So, thank you for sharing! What a great channel.
Pennsylvania... I think they've had other environmental disasters too. Like... Ford paints or something like that dumped old paint and that really fkd those people up. Still having babies with 5 eyeballs and cancer.
@@1houndgal Was it radium in the paint? Ahh... Didn't they use that on the watch dial stuff and all those women got mouth cancer from licking their brushes?
Learnt so much from this channel, great work and great history lesson, especially for this Aussie, most of the stories I'd never known happened - don't think a lot of news items in the US made it here prior to 2000s
Having been involved (emotionally) with Centralia since my return to Philadelphia in 1985, I have visited Centralia countless times over the years. I first saw it when it was in the process of being abandoned and the structures torn down. Your post was very well done for its brevity, you hit the important points and very accurately. Very sad story.
My students did an assignment on this place on Thursday. I'm sooooooo salty about this timing 🤣🤣 Great video as always! Love doing my morning makeup to your episodes!
I learned about the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire yesterday in a university lecture and immediately thought it would be a great idea for a future video.
@@jackieacheson4928 did he? I didn't look, but I don't remember seeing it and I think I've seen every one. I'll check Update: I don't see it, but there's a lot so maybe I missed it in my scrolling
I thought you had already done a Centralia video a year ago but it turns out Bright Sun and Plainly Difficult both did videos on it. It certainly helps that your all really freaking talented storytellers/reporters.
That's actually a really interesting and potentially accurate conjecture! We know of occasional underground fires that at least seem to have started naturally and that have been around for centuries!
@@deprofundis3293 I started thinking about it after I learned that many of the great flood stories began by early man finding fish fossils in the mountains. Not knowing that it used to be the sea floor before the tectonic plates pushed it up, they surmised that a great flood had to have occurred
Indigenous Australians have their own mythology which includes Burning Mountain, the site if a coal-seam fire that was started by lightning or bush-fire literally millennia ago and is *still* burning. Yep, that's Australia: even the ROCKS are trying to kill you.
The modern myth of the Christian hell is actually a creation of Dante’s Devine Comedy. The original hell parallel was the real location of Gehenna which is a valley believed by ancient Hebrews to be cursed. I’m not as familiar with non abrahamic depictions of hell parallels though.
Even story like this one (Centralia) that I have heard before are still so interesting to me. Its crazy that fire is still going after decades. I’ve been watching all of fascinating horror’s videos for the past few days! This channel is great!
Imagine accidentally starting a fire that would outlive your grandchildren.
Exactly what we've done on a global scale!
@@katiekane5247 yay. Goddamned humans.
the arsonist i was as an evil little baby is filled with glee at the concept alone
No thx lol.
"Hey future descendants, I won't be alive for your birthdays so please accept this ever-burning fire"
Thus we see the four elements needed for a fire to proliferate: oxygen, heat, fuel and bureaucracy.
There is never enough time or money to do it right the first time.
Scariest words ever spoken, I am from the government and I am here to help you.
I think you just won comment of the day. It was both funny and accurate.
WELL PUT!!! Succinct. I said the same thing only with about 20x more words in my comment. If UA-cam leaves it up, look at it.
Get a dictionary. Doesn't make sense.
Very nice
as someone who spent his childhood driving through Centralia every summer, i appreciate that this wasn't like the other Centralia videos. it didn't talk about the town being some 'cool spooky place to visit,' it didn't try to spin it as some 'scary' place, it just told the history honestly. Centralia as it stands now isn't anything special, you hardly ever even see steam/smoke rising from the ground like i remember seeing as a child. it's just a sad place, really.
Agree - I'm pretty sure no one died as a result of the fire, so I don't think it would qualify as haunted.
I was afraid to pass through Centralia as a child living in Schuylkill County. I just remember the grown-ups talking about it and being afraid that our car would just disappear into the ground.
It sounds like you are talking about earth.
My family travels back to Centralia every time we visit family (my mom lived there when this occurred) and you actually can still see the smoke rising from the ground in certain areas. They try to keep them fenced but people still go over pretty often
@@xxbreadpine10 I'm guessing it makes your mom sad to see her town like this. My little town of Mahanoy City is really falling apart and that saddens me so I can't even imagine how this must feel 💔 .
There is a mine fire in Germany at the Meißner mountain that has been burning since the 1700s. At certain spots, you can smell the distincive stench of burning lignite, hence the rocks in the area gained the nickname "stinking stones". A few years ago, part of the forest had to be closed for public access when the fire had burned through an outcrop of a coalbed. Shortly after, it had reached an old mining building that had been a popular rastaurant catering to day trippers for more than a century, called "Schwalbenthal". The ground became so unstable that it was declared unsafe to stay inside. However, it is still standing, and the premises, including a beer garden with a gorgeous view over the surrounding area, are now a lost place.
A coal seam has been burning near a place called Dudweiler in the German state of Saarland since 1668. In 1770, Goethe visited the "Burning Mountain" and reported about it in his work "From my Life: Poetry and Truth".
During my childhood in the 1960s, there was still a lot of smoke coming out of cracks in the mountain. Today there is hardly anything left to see. After 356 years the seam has apparently burned out.
My mom used to drive a "bookmobile" whose route passed through Centralia while it was still mostly occupied. She said it was always eerie how the town looked totally normal, but with large plumes of white smoke billowing from the pavement in the winter.
Fascinating, thanks for saying, is your mom on social media? She's seen some stuff, no doubt
@@DebNKY I think she only has a Facebook account that she uses to follow victorian home groups. I keep telling her that she should start a blog recounting all of the old homes she's seen!
@@EmelieKerek please tell her, librarians are adored on social media
@@DebNKY That is the strangest comment I have ever seen on a video. And being a former librarian, now retired I know of no such adoration.
@@kristinebailey6554 you watch some tame stuff then
Briliant thinking of local authorities: There is a fire threatening the entire city. Lets call a meeting and debate about it for a few weeks.
Exactly. Let's figure out who's going to pay for it. While the fire spreads under their feet.
Nothing like bureaucratic red tape and haggling to make a problem all the worse. 😑
Kocicika kitty. Typical politicians! They mess up everything they touch!
well, that is how things are done, you can't say in 10 minutes that you will use thousands of dollars on a plan no one knows if it will work or not
time is important but also know if your efforts will work or will be just a waste of time and money
tbh, i think it was not doable to put out the fire and save centralia
Not quite. The real delay was the local politicians asking, "how can I get rich off this." This is when you call in your cousin who does construction to put in a bid ten times the cost, and try to ram it through. So basically the entire Trump presidency, at a much smaller scale of course.
The only really interesting tidbit you missed was when they truly realized it was a problem that would necessitate leaving was when a gas station owner realized the gas in his underground tanks was at a dangerously high temperature.
Always an interesting story and I echo what others have said - do not go there to visit. It is unstable ground with toxic fumes.
Oh, and the reason they know it's not an extension of the bast fire is because some dude and his son were operating an illegal mine in between there and Centralia and the guy was like "oh yeah no we'd be dead" and went back about his business 🤣
Thousands of brain dead social media enthusiasts will make a pilgrimage there, now that you pointed out the dangers!
@@josephvanwie6706 um. Bad news my guy. It's been a local entertainment for decades
@@josephvanwie6706 Bro, locals have been flocking there by the droves LONG before social media.
When was titbit changed to tidbit? I'm going mad here, the world is mad, what are those things on the end of my legs?
Bowoooooooo.
As a Pennsylvanian, I always love hearing about our own Silent Hill.
Yes, but where's the constant fog and murderous creatures? Lol
Nothing But Trouble staring Dan Ackroyd and Chevy Chase and Demi Moore also takes place in Centralia
Silent Hill is how I first learned about Centralia…I fell head first into a UA-cam rabbit hole about it
As long as you don't say it inspired the Silent Hill games.
Sucks it's not really much else but a unwanted tire dumping town now. Last time I went that's all that was there. Trash and the highway, that is now covered up with dirt.
@@samwindmill8264 the constant fog is when you go into the Appalachian Mountains. we deported all the murderous creatures to New Jersey
This is actually the first time I’ve ever heard of a “mine fire.” It’s tragic to see what an adverse effect something like this can have on so many people. And also ironic considering the town’s own livelihood eventually became its downfall
And it's driven the price of coal up. That coal could have kept the entire US supplied for years at a reasonably cheap price. Because it's all just completely f****** wasted we have to get coal from elsewhere and ship it in. It makes me angry to see it all just wasted because someone was too lazy to properly seal a mineshaft and someone else was too lazy to make sure it was sealed before dumping garbage there.
More here than anywhere else, I suspect.... hindsight is 20/20.
You should also look up Butte MT’s Speculator Disaster, 1917, if you want to learn about another bureaucratic mess.
There’s a similarly eerie story from Western Australia. An old mining town named Wittenoom used to house 20,000 people and was profitable due to the huge deposits of blue asbestos contained in the mine-shafts nearby. The mines were closed in the 1960’s due to decreasing profit and the town slowly dwindled until a couple decades later when due to the increased research into and knowledge of the harmful affects of asbestos fibres, the government of WA closed down the entire town. Only 3 people continue to call Wittenoom home despite the governments attempts to remove them.
I was born and raised in Philadelphia and went hunting with my Father not far from Centralia several times starting in the early 70’s. I got to see a town slowly die. It was sad. Once a beautiful little town became a wasteland.
😞
Lies
@@donvito5647 Excuse me? Who the Hell do you think you are? You’re reported and blocked.
@@donvito5647
This pen is... ReRe Reeee. ROYAL BLUEEE! 🖊
Jim Carrey? Liar liar? Ace Ventura dude? Anyways. I concur!
@@francispitts9440 Wow, is that "hate speech" to you? Pretty thin skin there so maybe you were lying.
One thing I adore with this channel is how it uses music - having a window of silence and just hearing the narration gives more weight to the story, and when there *is* music, it's never overpowering.
Superb content as always!
I can't watch many channels because of their mood-creating music. On this channel the narrator himself creates the mood 👍🏻
And FH never plays music over parts of stories where he's recounting last moments/death counts of victims. It's a nice subtle touch of respect
You have really cute eyes but yes this man posts some good content
@e
I agree I love the theme music! Never change it!
A topic suggestion: The sinking of the SS Principessa Mafalda in 1927. Even though it is the largest ocean liner accident ever in the southern hemisphere, there is very little coverage of it, on UA-cam or elsewhere.
Why do something relatively obscure when you can do another upload on an event already covered a hundred times by other channels?
I'm not even going to watch this. Done so many times I could near write a book on it from memory.
@@change_your_oil_regularly4287 Byeeeee.
@e And we're back to going through and reporting your comments and your channel. Cheers!
@e go away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@CHANGE_YOUR_OIL_REGULARLY why did you click on it then
I actually met the reporter who actually "broke" this story nationwide, when he came to give a lecture at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, where I used to work. Absolutely fascinating.
there's a suburb near St. Louis where nuclear material was illegally dumped and a fire has been steadily creeping through the dump towards it. the people whose kids are ALL sick from the shit from the dump that's next door to a fucking school have had to fight the hemming and hawing government as well as the waste company who's, btw, owned by Bill fucking Gates to do SOMETHING about the fire about to nom nom up some nuclear waste
David DeKok, Pottsville Republican
Actually actually
@@hillweggs641yes
My mom lived here when she was a kid and her family had to relocate one this happened. She knew the kid who almost died in the sinkhole. We still go back and visit the land (which is barren now) every few years. She can still point out where all the buildings where; It makes her very emotional. And the fire is still going to this day!! The government did not treat the people there properly once they made everyone move, didn’t compensate them properly and this could’ve been avoided in the first place. This town will always have a special place in my families heart. Thanks for doing a video on it! Seemed pretty accurate.
It wasn’t so much a careless burn as a careless sealing of a closed mine. Sad
Yea, definitely the mining company or whomever was contracted to seal the mine who is at fault. I'm not a fan of burning garbage, but you really can't blame it on the dump cleaners.
I've seen countless videos about Centralia, yet as usual FH brings his own brand of interesting dare I say FASCINATING commentary to this topic. He could read the phone book and make it sound intriguing and sinister. My FAVORITE yt channel!!
Ive seen other people on UA-cam talk about this too, and I totally agree that this was still worth to watch !! A good storyteller who gets the facts right, that I can’t say no to 🤩
"Billy bob's happy Funtime playground. 555-1234. The owner died in a tragic cigarette lighter accident. ”
Ha, he could narrate putting an English muffin in a toaster oven and make it seem fascinating.
So true. I always look forward to Tuesdays because of this channel
There was once a US senator who read out the entire phone book of Washington DC aloud for a day and a night as a filibuster to prevent a bill from being passed. If FH had been that senator it would have made for an interesting 24 hours on CSPAN.
There is a natural coal deposit in Australia that's been burning so long it has its own ancient mythology.
Where’s that?
@e please stop
@@zacharyantle7940 Burning Mountain in... I'm gonna say New South Wales. Pretty sure it's NSW.
Never heard of it and I live in Australia
@@bruhm4571 ikr? What a troll
Brilliant coverage as always. I've seen too many videos or comments that treat the residents like they're idiots, like the average person should just be able to move on a whim or know what's happening beneath the ground. Thank you for giving the residents the respect and care they deserve 💫
I wouldn’t consider the average resident in 1965 or even 1970 an idiot. As for people still living there in the 80s or even still living there now? Yeah, morons. How the fuck is moving within two generations, “moving on whim?”
“Well this all started in my grandpas time. Of course it’s so hard to move on a whim. Maybe by the time my own grand kids are adults they’ll be ready to move...”
Please. Gtfoh. People always act like it’s SO hard to move. It’s not. It’s hard. But it’s something people do every day. Single parents with like 1000 $ in their bank account and two kids move cross country every day. For much less pressing reasons than literal poison pouring into their homes, their work, their child’s room, their child classroom. Not just idiots. I’d say anyone who still was living there with their kids past say 1975 was committing active child abuse and should of had their children taken away by the state to a place they weren’t being poisoned every day simply because their parents were too stubborn or lazy or stuck in their ways or nostalgic to move... The excuses we make for people. Decades to get your shit together and move the fuck away from that death town. That’s insurmountable?
Anyone who places the importance over a place over their own personal welfare and their children’s. Anyone who chooses a place over people. Yeah I have words for you. Some people get way to hung up on places. “But this is my home...”
I hate to be cliche but home is where the heart is. Centralia is just a place. A horribly shitty place. Clinging to a twin is just as silly and reprehensible as clinging to an intimate object. It’s like choosing a car over your children. But for some reason this particular neurosis, this damn near psychopathy gets a pass. “But those are those people’s homes!”
Really. It’s not what’s important in life.
As for you saying the average person didn’t know what was going on beneath the ground. They certainly did. It wasn’t a secret. And even if it was, the poison smoke billowing from cracks in the street, the heat and melted snow, the headaches, the carbon monoxide alarms and checks and advice to keep your windows up, the fucking sink holes opening up to hell... These are clues no?
I swear. The excuses we make for people...
@@benhaney9629 If you found out that you suddenly had to move and would never able to move back, do you really think that you’d, assuming that there weren’t any major cost issues, be able to do it? One’s personal attachment to their home is much bigger than you estimate.
God, I love your outro so fucking much. They way it ends with your final thoughts on the event with a crescendo of the song slowly rising, ending with no words but the music at its highest volume, leaving the spectator to take in all that happened and reflect on what they learned. Gives me chills every time, one of my favorite reasons to come back to your videos.
Centralia is 10 minutes down the road from me. My town is on the same path but at a slower rate. In another 50 or so years my town will suffer the same fate. The town itself is still very creepy. There's still a church that stands with a small cemetery attached to it so when it's really cold out the steam and smoke rolling over the graves can make it look like a genuine horror movie set.
Edit: the video game Silent Hill is based off of Centralia's setting, hence the creepy fog all over the town with erie noises
Weird question from a non American: if the fire is underground could it not spread across the entire state or states? May be stupid but was always curious about that …..
You should move now, you should move to Hawaii!
@@CantdoitWontdoit I am not an expert on mine fires but I think it can only go as far as the mines/coal deposits that are on fire. So it can cover a wide area but it can’t go past the where the mines are because it needs both the oxygen and coal to burn.
Not all the local rock is coal and I don’t think a coal fire burns hot enough to set standard bed rock on fire.
@@CantdoitWontdoit it's the coal vein that's on fire so the fire will only spread as far as the coal vein spreads. My area is rich in coal though so the real problem comes in stopping one fire from spreading to another vein. My town sits next to what was for the longest time the world's largest man made mountain...it's entirely made out of coal and dirt removed from mines.
Edit: Hitler once had plans on bombing my little town first if the nazis ever crossed the ocean. We were the largest producers of coal so shutting us down would've shut down the entire country's factories and infrastructure
@@ViolentRainbow lol we've got awhile and I won't be alive in another 50 years so I'll stay while the property value and taxes drop 🤷
Crazy thing is this isn't even the only active mine fire in Pennsylvania, there's 37 more active coal mine fires in the state according to the Department of Environmental Protection.
not sure if mathies is still on fire
Another reason to get the heck outta here goddamn.
Mordor irl
Ahh...and here I thought all of the people publicly urinating Philadelphia was because they were gross, uncivilized pigs, but as it turns out...they're just trying to put out all of the raging underground mine fires that apparently plague the state.
It's like my dear old grandmother used to always say; "you should never judge a crusty, pissing book by it's greasy cheese steak befouled cover" and never have her words rung more true.
Bureaucracy: procrastination under the guise of thoroughness.
@@Stevie-J what are you a state employee?
@@Stevie-J
I guess if I had known better, I would’ve understood that putting out fires as soon as possible is not sound practice. We need to do it the way the town of centralia did, there’s a success story right there.
@@Stevie-J I'm not talking just about Centralia, it's every bureaucracy.
Seems to me the only snarky comment here is yours.
@@Stevie-J Whoa, why so douchey? Do you feel personally attacked by this comment?
@@reversalmushroom he started the fire in Centralia
My fiancé’s dad is from the next town over so a few years back when we were visiting his parents we went to Centralia. I had no idea what the place was but he showed us around the town. The worst thing to me was the rivers which at the time were still this horrible orange yellow color. It’s a sight to see!
The orange/yellow/reddish color you see is not a result of the fire. It’s caused by an iron sulfide mineral called pyrite. When it is exposed to air and water it creates a combination of sulfuric acid and iron.
You’ll see this same effect in the waters all around the coal regions of Pa.
Just as a small point of contention: I wouldn't call this a "single, careless burn." I'd call it "careless securing of a mineshaft". The men who burned the material might have set tge fire, but I can't say whether or not they hold any responsibility for the situation of the mineshaft below the area being burned. Maybe they should have known about it, maybe not. Whoever should have sealed up tha mineshaft, in my opinion, is the underlying cause of the fire. Secondary responsibility lay with the townships ineffective management of the situation. The workers were simply hired to do a task that had been done multiple times in the past - they sound to have been hired to carry out a task, a task that they were improperly briefed on. Maybe they should have asked, but the town absolutely should have made the poteinal risks clear to them prior to the job.
Any landfill burns are careless burns. It just shouldnt happen.
@@StrazdasLT I don't really recall making my initial comment, but I see your point.
I live on the west side of Pennsylvania, and this is the stuff of nightmares for me. My uni is in an area that is surrounded by/above abandoned mines, and sinkholes are a fear of mine.
Lose ground or cracks in the ground should be avoided in an area wjere sinkholes can suddenly snag a person up. I'm sure, of course, you must already know this.
That's scary but thank corrupt politicians.
I grew up in SW PA and I remember going to a neighboring school for a dance in middle school. I thought it was so cool that they had a sunken/step down gym. But what I had assumed was an interesting architectural feature in the dark was in fact a 6" drop caused by the school incrementally collapsing into the underlying defunct mine. They closed and demolished the building within a year or two. Gave me nightmares for awhile!
Come live in Florida. Sinkholes open up all the time. It's kind of like "unlucky Roulette ".
@Squidman I live in Scranton PA myself.
Centralia has fascinated me for years, apparently it was thought at one time in the 1970s that the fire might have burned itself out since there were no longer any obvious signs. Then one day a guy who ran a petrol station measured the temperature in his underground fuel tanks and realised they were almost 700 degrees…
*172 degrees F
Would not want to be running a gas station when there’s a huge fire burning underground
Gasoline is so scary and causes cancer 🎗️
According to Google*: Gasoline's flashpoint is at about -49°F (or -45 °C). Depending upon the composition of the fuel and other conditions, this can vary slightly. But, this fuel is reliable as a combustible fuel and easier to ignite than other fuels, like kerosene. .... 700°F?!
Though with gas at room temp as it often is for lawnmowers and such .... not sure what that flashpoint means, exactly. I would've assumed it's the temperature where it bursts into flame.
Ok, further according to Google*: The flash point of a volatile material is the lowest temperature needed to evaporate enough fluid to form a combustible concentration of gas. Gasoline has a flash point of -45°F and an auto-ignition temperature of 536°F.
* = site/information chosen as Google's preferred answer.
@@justinbowman9567 it was actually 172 F degrees, not sure where he got 700 F degrees from
I have family ties to Centralia, so this topic has always fascinated me; and I have been lucky enough to see graffiti highway before they covered it.
They covered it? Damn, that's a shame.
@@tonwhelan People were racing and using quads on it, it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt, and emergency crews would have difficulty getting to it.
@@MrChopsticktech This one here? ua-cam.com/video/cO8DToYQS-I/v-deo.html
My grandma lived there when she was young!
Because people do not race around on quads everywhere. Imagine shutting down everything because someone may get hurt. Literally race around on the highway here. I live near Centralia. This was a bullshit excuse.
I think I'm going to dig in on this thought: Centralia was faced with an emergency, an existential threat, that they didn't RECOGNIZE as an emergency and an existential threat.
We tend to have that problem as individuals and as groups. We don't realize we're staring down the barrel of threats until it's too late.
Champlain Towers
Yes, we can accept information that is within a certain range of our current reality, and beyond that it implies a drastic change of reality that is unpalatable to bear, because it is - in this case, literally - like the ground on which we stand and the fabric of our reality being torn from under our feet. And so we tend to either dismiss it or look for justifications for disbelieving the evidence. And another fact involved is that many, many people are very poor at grasping the inevitable implications of a compounded sequence of events. Many humans are more like pigeons in that they react to threats based on immediate proximity, rather than like crows, who react to threats based on trajectory.
I feel like you're talking about climate change...
@@vivalaminion2936 Actually, a wide variety of things, including a CCTV video from a far eastern country where a man came up to two men talking on the street and tried to assassinate one of them. But the gun jammed, and while he was trying to unjam it, one man ran away but the guy who was the target of the assassination acted bewildered as if thinking, "What are you doing?". The assassin successfully unjammed the gun and shot him. Many people don't like hearing about problems with HIV and AIDS science either. They've got too much invested in it, emotionally. It's the same when you describe errors in translation of the Bible as well. People don't like change to the very fabric of their reality.
Group think
Was lucky enough to go there as a kid in the late 90's when the fire was still pretty active. Seeing the vent holes pour out steam and other gasses was crazy. There were still more buildings left back then and my dad talked to some of the remaining hold-out residents. Areas of the ground were too warm to touch. Such a cool memory, I'm glad my dad took that detour.
What a sad story. It is incredible that after 57 years the fire is still burning.
Edit: Thank you for the subtitles. 💜
well, is not that sad, everybody left and a lesson was learned the hard way
and the amount of coal left can burn for at least 50 more years
Well, Centralia is in the very coal rich belt of the region. And when mined, the technique was room and pillar, which leaves behind a significant portion of coal to support the earth above. Add to that, oxygen is slow to reach burn points, which results in a very slow moving, smoldering burning of coal. Over all that time, just going by the areas visibly affected on the surface, it probably hasn't even spread beyond a couple square miles. It has the ability to burn for thousands of years, only stopped if every direction it's spreading, the vein pinches out.
There are coal fires that have been burning so long that there's local mythos about them. Stuff burns slow and readily. Crazy stuff.
@@ElementofKindness my dad who has been a coal miner under and above ground for 30 years said more than likely it hit water level under ground. I only live a few miles from there outside of Ashland and it hasn’t been smoking or anything for a couple years. And something people don’t know it’s not the coal burning it’s the rock and methane gas burning.
Brennender Berg in Germany has a coal-seam fire that has been burning since 1668.
I think you should look into the Kingman, Arizona propane explosion from the 1970s. A fairly obscure yet monumental disaster. There’s actually raw footage of it here on UA-cam shot by a guy on his rooftop miles away. Huge explosion that completely changed a very small desert town and is still used as an example in safety training courses.
The Henderson, NV rocket fuel plant explosion would be another good one... the videos on that are just amazing.
BLEVE. That would be interesting
My dad worked at an oil refinery and showed us this video a bunch of times. I knew the word “bleve” at a young age. I’ll look it up again now!
I wonder if it was in one of the USCSB videos? I've watched them all.
I belive 13 people died from this disaster in Kingman.
Back when I was in college we had a class on movie making and had to shoot our own movie. We ended up using Centralia as our backdrop and just exploring the town was a wonderful experience. It was such a beautiful place and going there in the middle of winter was so weird with how it felt like a nice spring day. The graffiti highway was also really cool to walk down and just see all the art. I think back then there were only 10 people living there still. One of those experiences I'll remember for lifetime.
Very cool! I guess it's like walking through a scene out of "The Twilight Zone". You can imagine seeing children on the playground equipment or a movie playing at the Drive-In theater.💓
Graffiti "art" is pure trash "art". It shows you how pathetic, simplistic and stupid average human beings are. ALL THE UGLINESS of human species is shown in graffiti, made by average human beings. Why would you sincerely approve of such poisoning of our surroundings is beyond any reason.
It is horrible sight to see that "art". It reminds of how worthless our species truly is. How blind average human being is to his own worthlessness.
@@vidura Okay, mate. Get better soon.
@@vidura damn , dude. Who hurt you? One person's"art" is indeed another person's trash. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.. You seem to not behold, and that's okay..
Hope your day gets better.❤️
Its really interesting you were able to see it and other people would have to live there
Local here! They recently covered up Grafitti Highway (about a two mile stretch of old Route 61), and apart from two private cemeteries and the Orthodox Church (still does Sunday mass last I heard), there really isn't much left to the place at all. There are a few patches of sidewalk still crumbling, but for the most part Nature has reclaimed what was left of the town. A shame, honestly. I used to love going hiking there in the summer, and I know a lot of my neighbors liked running their ATVs and dirtbikes in the woods out there.
Whole thing is wildly underwhelming in person. We have a video on it, went there, basically just a few buildings and a lot of empty lots.
We’ve gone up there to, the county basically leveled the place. The only thing “cool” about it is the story. There is nothing there at all.
Hey, I think you should cover the Sidoarjo Mud Flow Disaster. It's a really interesting albeit tragic story from my home country, and I think nowadays a lot of people have forgotten the incident even in my own country. As always, love your channel bruh!
THAT one is the main theme of my worst night terrors! Absolutely!
YES PLEASE
Im sure urban explorers will always keep it going.
Oh yeah, that Mud Vulcano is surely the most important cautionary tale for any fracking operation. Too bad its happened on Third World Country, or is it Second World?
He has an email address in the description where you can send ideas. I don’t think he reads all the comments.
Even when I already know the story, I'll still watch because this channel is just so well done.
under 1 million subs in 2022 is such an insult to this channel, it deserves so many more
I grew up hearing about this since it was on the way to see my grandparents. This was the first competently accurate telling outside print, thank you. Thank you for always telling accurate tales!
Excellent story! I am from western Pennsylvania my grandfather was a cool miner. I never gave it much thought until today thank you for the story.
The story of Centralia has fascinated me for years. It is such a tragic tale, and one that continues on even today. As dangerous as it is, I would love to visit one day.
Places like this fascinate me.
This is so very sad this fire continues to this day . It is fascinating but baffles me on why it's still burning .......an even in these modern times no way to stop it .
According to the Department of Environmental Protection, the Centralia fire will continue to burn for the next 100 years.
That's crazy to think about. Centralia Fire: 1962 - 2121
Thank you. I was just wondering about this.
I spoke with members of DEP in 2017 about the fire. While it is still burning, it is no longer under the town. It has been out from under the town for a while at that time, so the town could be reinhabited safely, as per DEP.
Its moved north, quite a few miles away from Centralia. I live about 30 minutes from there, and can tell you if you were walking there, you'd never know there was a fire there once. The town has been demolished almost entirely save for the fire house. All youll see is empty plots of land with driveways, and normal roads.
@@cavdrkz24 any idea why demolishing was required as opposed to just leaving the houses there considering the fire was underground?
@@TinkSalsa the buildings were unstable on their foundations due to all of the sinkholes generated. As soil and rock settled into the space left by the burnt up coal, all of those buildings would have eventually fallen down.
We had the Hazelwood coal mine fire here in Victoria Australia a few years ago. It only burned for several weeks but it was mentioned that it could burn for years or decades.
You should do a video on the Westgate bridge collapse in Melbourne, it was the anniversary recently
It's funny you should mention the West Gate Bridge.
My neighbours house extention (from 1981) was drafted by an architect who was involved in the west gates construction. And when my neighbour heard this she obviously showed some expression of horror and the architect quickly exclaimed "the second one!"
She told me this story about 20 minutes before the Melbourne cup this afternoon 😂
Long story short, I would also love to see a short doco on the bridge collapse!
Seeing an upload from this channel truly makes my day!
@e
Thanks for covering this story! I’m nearly addicted to your channel because you just give us details and facts, no bs, and in turn you’ve caught our attention. It’s so weird that I hadn’t heard this story before. Then again, I guess that the city doesn’t want to feel too embarrassed about the fact that they were being penny-wise and pound-foolish. They could have invested thousands instead of having to bail out an entire town. As well, why would they start fires intentionally knowing that there were mines below? Couldn’t they have taken waste to another town entirely for disposal? I have no freaking clue how things got do out of control but feel bad for the innocent citizens of the place.
Indeed Centralia is one of the best examples of how not to extinguish a coal mine fire. But it was also a good "case study" for different extinguishing methods. One main problem of the Centralia mine fire is the room and pillar minig method, where approx. 50% of coal stay in place, perfectly ventilated by the surrounding room. As a former member of the sino-german coal fire initiative I had the opportunity to study extinguishing methods from all over the World. In the USA, India and China over 300 smaller and bigger fires are still burning - and can only be extinguished with adequate funding, a lot of maschine and man power and last but not least a lot of patience...
The bit where you listed positives was like a real estate agent trying to sell a property in hell.
Not really.
Or Phoenix.... What's the difference?!
@@JohnDoeRando More like new Jersey XD
@@anastasiaklyuch2746 id rather live in hell than new jersey.
Funnily enough, I'm pretty sure they're actually is a town called hell in Pennsylvania
I've van camped in Centralia a couple of times now. It's eerily quiet except for the occasional local, walking a dog. I've heard that they're planning to demolish what's left of the highway to discourage trespassing after dark and further vandalism (not my words; I love some of the art on that pavement).
The mining company who purchased the land that old highway is on have covered it up in 2020 with dirt .
Yep, it is buried now.
Any thiccy's still there?
They had to bury the original highway that had to be bypassed since people just can't visit anything without trashing it and spray painting Everything including the trees and rocks.
Thats too bad, it should be your words, because it is vandalism.
This is my favorite disaster channel on UA-cam. You always pay a great amount of respect to the victims, and you don’t rely on theatrics, obnoxious screaming, or “spooky” edits to tell the stories. Thanks for another great video!
This was absolutely heartbreaking for the residents of Centralia. I learned about this a few years ago. It started just two months before I was born. It's a testament to the resistance to change. Some residents left and were seen as pariahs, but they felt their safety and health were at stake. The government didn't skimp on what they offered residents and those who left were able to buy a much nicer place. There were sticklers who stayed and died off or eventually were forced out. But they were grooming a horse that had been dead for years and they couldn't move on.
This is literally unbelievable. In a world of information overload I have never seen anything about Centralia. This really was fascinating horror at its best (or worst).
It literally isn't 🤡
@@hillweggs641 I guess you’re right. Although I’ve not seen it with my own eyes…..
Yay, a story I was already fascinated by, documented by Fascinating Horror!
This is an amazing piece of history. It's a shame they got rid of the Graffiti Highway, though :(
It's a double edged sword for the locals. Brought tourism but also liter and vandalism became a big problem. Eventually the land was bought and the owner for safety reasons shut it down. He originally wanted to keep it available to the public but people just got worse so ge covered the whole thing with dirt. Maybe 300 years from now someone will dig it up and wonder why so many penises and boobs were painted on a road designed for vehicles lol
Ikr. It's so interesting
@@2ndTooth The locals really hated the tourists honestly. My friend is a reporter and interviewed them a few years ago, she had a hard time finding anyone who would even talk to her.
@@jessH1327 yea the more popular it became the less the pay off
@e
This is the first time I've ever seen a video about Centralia in which the chain of events was explained clearly and succinctly. Until now, I have had a vague idea of what happened, but not the full story.
Evidently, it took Fascinating Horror's unique style to help me grasp it all without any ambiguity.
You ought to learn to read better you won't have to have your information spoon-fed to you
@@TheBigMclargehuge where in that comment did she mention reading?
Thank you for this respectful coverage. A number of documentaries I have seen treat the Centralians as if they were idiots not to know right away what was going on beneath their feet. The loss of this town is very sad as there was nothing that could be done after a very short time to save it. Completly different than the many US towns that have had to be abandoned due to man-mad pollution problems (Love Canal)
You're right, this story is more about neglect than abuse
I find it so frustrating when people so casually dismiss how hard this kind of situation was. Unless they were being regularly informed, how on Earth would the be able to know the severity of the situation. More than that, I often see people underestimating how difficult or it is to *leave.* Completely uprooting your life is difficult AND expensive, and as mining town I would presume the people most effected were not making a ton of money. In the end, it was the mandate and the government buying them out that gave people that ability. Some might have known what was happening and just couldn't leave.
They polluted the town with fire. That is one of the worst kinds of pollution. I would much rather have my yard full of paper cups and potato chip bags than a bunch of fire.
Even when he covers topics I’ve heard of, I still want to watch his vids. Always well done!
I’ve seen a bunch of videos about Centralia and not one of them mentioned the landfill as the reason for its demise. Great video as usual, filling in details that others miss out for the sake of “spookiness”
You have no idea how excited I was to see the word Centralia. I’ve been hoping you’d cover Centralia
Me too. I grew up near Philadelphia but had relatives and friends that lived near there.
First thought that came to mind for me was Centralia, Missouri. I don’t live all that far from there. Maybe 70 miles is all.
Leave it to Fascinating Horror Channel to teach me the Centralia fire was manmade and preventable.
I was always led to believe it was a natural occurance, but had it not been for the mine shafts dug, and the practice of landfill burning in the same location, it would have never been an issue.
Right? I always thought it started naturally.
@@samanthadrennan Yeah! Turns out, it was humans' fault once again...! 🤔
I went to centralia in Spring 2019 and it was a great time! It was surprisingly full of visitors who brought along ATVs and dirt bikes and were just freely exploring the old town
I believe this is the town that helped inspire the first couple of Silent Hill games (and is a pretty big part of the first movie). There's no coal fire but images the abandoned, smoky town were a major source of inspiration. I could be wrong about it being Centralia but I think I remember it being this town specifically.
It only inspired the movie.
I think it inspired the games, but I do know it inspired the movie
There is a coal fire in the movie lol. Have you seen it?
@@recessional5560 Yes. I have
@@RightsForZombies Well there is indeed a coal fire in it…
I just can't stop listening to this. Such a soothing voice. And so easy to understand as a non native speaker.
I've read about Centralia and watched a few videos on it, but this one is by far the most in depth and detailed that I've seen, well done!
I've heard the story of Centralia numerous times by now and it still fills me with an uneasy horror vibe every time
Yes~! As a native Pennsylvanian, I'm so happy you did a video on Centralia! It's a place that has always fascinated me. Awesome video, love it! Also, 686k subs?? I swear last time I looked you were at 666k (LOL). And I remember subbing to your channel when you only had a couple thousand subs. I'm so stoked for you! You deserve it. 1 mil will be here in no time! ♥
I love your channel. I think it comes across as the facts of what happened without the editorial of personal opinion overwhelming the piece.
Thanks for all the layers you added to this tragedy.
Another superb presentation. FH never disappoints.
On a side note, it's interesting to consider that since I was born in September of 1962, this fire has burned every moment of my life to the present.
Typical bureaucrats covering their arses instead of taking action.
Rather than worrying about permits (just what kind of people need permission to put out a fire & save a whole town anyway?) they should have just authorised the work immediately.
Better to ask forgiveness after than gain permission before.
You’ll never please the general public no matter what. They tried to do it right and by the book and sure enough there’s someone that knows better
@@kingssuck06
“Right and by the book”
The entire town was destroyed, they hardly did it “right”.
Equivalent analogy. A heart attack patient waits at the hospital. Surgeons," Let's get the manuals out. Let's discuss payment."
It is an emergency. We don't need bureaucracy.
@@bruhbruh-us6gl You can’t just instantly start work on a project funded by the government. There are many checks and balances that are in place in order to cut down on corruption. The work and amount has to be approved by elected officials and that can take a long time. You don’t just jump into something funded by the state, there is a long process for that, and for good reason. Maybe someday when you grow up, you’ll learn that. But then general public morons couldn’t blame the government for anything and everything if they knew more about it
@@kingssuck06
Okay. So what do cities do when there's an emergency?
For instance, I live on the edge of a big city. Last year (?) a major water main broke. We're talking a main that's easily over 8 feet tall?
The main flooded a freeway at rush hour. The lack of clean water shut down huge parts of the city, IIRC a million people were out of service.
The medical center was doing emergency services only as they were on bottled water...it's a giant collection of hospitals.
...This city, if you include outlying areas, is over 4 million people.
That main was fixed in a couple of days. The city did not fcuk around.
...Yes, this IS a big city. They both have WAY more money and way more responsibility, because waaay more people.
But the Centralia city council failed to read an emergency _as an emergency._ So they didn't respond correctly.
This happens a lot. It's common human behavior in both individuals and governments. It's... highly unfortunate.
I live in Pennsylvania near coal waste dump atop a abandoned mine. You can see small amounts of smoke coming from small holes in the ground. The whole state might as well be superfund site. The dump also has a large creek running through the middle of it.
I live in Pennsylvania as well......the whole state isn't all coal mines....
What a lot of people don't realize is that bituminous coal can self-ignite under certain conditions when it's piled up. In the days of coal-powered ships, this was a serious danger.
I had family who lived near Centralia and have been there several times. In the early 80s, it looked quite sad and depressing. But by the early 2000s, all sorts of plants and wildlife were flourishing and it had become a sort of tourist attraction and playground for ATVs and such. Much of the fire had already burned past this original location.
I've seen a bunch on Centralia, much of it far longer, but you covered pertinent details I don't remember learning before. Great job. Thanks.
Last year, I made my first of what has now been several trips to Knoebel's, a family amusement park in north-central PA. While I have not done so, I could take a path that leads me straight through Centralia. I have long considered doing so, as I'm genuinely curious what it looks like today.
Don't go alone
@@LauraCNeko1 does not seem safe.
I really wouldn’t recommend doing that.
@@karenduvall1415 why not
Don't listen to all these people who are trying to scare you about going. Next time you take the trip, go to Centralia! There are two main roads right through town, there are still some living there who love to tell the story of their town and have scrapbooks and photo albums to show you of how things used to be and they know all the safer areas. Graffiti highway has been officially closed off sadly due to people not respecting the area, but there's still so much interesting stuff to see. Honestly, if the fires are still burning underground anymore it's hard to tell. When I was a kid (I'm 33 now) we used to go to Centralia to walk around once a year and there was always a ton of smoke coming from holes in the ground, and it was a lot more risky then. Nowadays I even go searching for vent holes and smoke, especially in the areas I visited as a kid and cannot see any, smell any, or feel the warmth anymore. You could put your hand up to a hole and feel the heat from the fires back then. I think it's finally burned through almost all of the coal deposits that were in that mine and the fires are finally starting to die out. Also, in one of the first photos he showed in this video, in the upper left side of the photo you can see a big white church, while there are way more trees and overgrowth to the land nowadays, you can find the road that leads to that church. The church is still there and still in use to this day! There's a small neighboring town that overlooks where Centralia was and they use that church. If you can find the road to it, leading just off the main road through town, it gives a spectacular view of the entirety of Centralia.
God, Centralia fascinates me so much, and I'm so glad to finally see a video from you on it. I read an official document about it some years back; they estimated that it'll continue to burn for at LEAST another 200 years, and the amount of water it would take to put it out is greater than or equal to the Atlantic Ocean. Wouldn't be surprised if that's been upgraded to Pacific-Ocean-amounts by now.
Spy vs Spy had a song called Waiting for Centralia to Sink which prompted me to go there about a decade ago. Weird place.
Love your videos - you always have great respect while discussing tragic events. I've been following your for about a year (or maybe a little more) and still enjoy them. Congrats on the 700k!
These should all be on Netflix and this guy should be making a bundle.. fricking awesome...
I can never get tired of stories about Centralia. This is my favourite channel of this nature so I'm so happy that you have covered this!!
This is a town in my state. People still see smoke coming up every once in a while. I think the area is down to one homeowner that refused to leave. I can’t imagine the horror this town went through. Well done on this story. I learned parts I hadn’t heard before. Specifically on the negligence of the initial burn.
That homeowner probably enjoys the carbon monoxide high.
I think you'd do a great job covering the Oso, WA landslide tragedy. That and sink hole stories. They are terrifying and fascinating
Agreed!
There’s another huge landslide tragedy that happened in Wales I’d like him to cover
I’ve got a co-worker who said that we should turn Centraila into a geothermal power plant. After all, if it’s going to burn for 200+ years, we may as well use it for something. Considering the feds and state have yet to put it out, let’s use it for some good.
A geothermal plant would require reliable solid ground though, which is unfortunately not present in this scenario. But I agree, it's a huge waste.
@@herseem Its worse than waste. Its releasing poisonous gases the equivalent to people burning coil without any filters, so even worse than coal plants. Centralia alone releases more radiation trapped in coal through those gases than the entire US nuclear power plants combined.
@@StrazdasLT That's also interesting.
This is by far, one of the most disturbing events you've reported on. Fascinating Horror, indeed! Thank you for curating such an excellent channel.
Did you catch his Nutty Putty Cave episode? That one still gives me chills!
@@dellahicks7231 sure did! Lesson learned? don't be mucking about in caves...
Native of NEPA here. I went to Centralia on a field trip in elementary school, had to have been between 1995-1997. The thing I remember most clearly was watching a sneaker melt on the bare pavement. I've since gone back with a group of friends in the early 2010s when a few people were still around. Saw the poisonous gases venting from cracks in the ground, the sinkholes, etc. We also visited the Lost Highway (also pictured in the video) before they dumped a bunch of dirt and gravel all over it to keep people from driving on it. There was a sinkhole we saw on the highway that had to be at least 15 feet deep. They've since bulldozed most of the buildings in the main town area so there's not much to see anymore except ruins, and the old graveyard (which is fenced in).
I live around the area and honestly, the more interesting part of Centralia was Graffiti Highway. It was a cool place to legally paint graffiti for a long time, but was buried last year
RIP
Is there anything worth checking out that make the drive from jersey worth it?
Are there any cave entrances where you can see the fire? It'd probably be like a classic depiction of hell down there. Caves and endless flame.
I think it's still worth visiting. I drove from NC to see it. There are some openings in the ground and in the side of hills in the woods where steam is still coming out. I enjoyed filming it and other aspects of the former town.
It was worth visiting when you could view the whole highway but the dicks covered it in dirt piles... Non the less its still cool to see a tiny almost abandoned town with smoke coming from ground in places.
What’s horrifyingly fascinating is the endless content for this channel
Pretty good video on the topic of Centralia. A fair amount of information within this production that I never knew about. So, thank you for sharing! What a great channel.
This has always fascinated me. I've watched many documentaries on it but none gave we the details you did. Thanks!
I was wondering if you’d ever do Centralia. It’s a sad story. So depressing for the people from there.
Pennsylvania... I think they've had other environmental disasters too. Like... Ford paints or something like that dumped old paint and that really fkd those people up. Still having babies with 5 eyeballs and cancer.
Radium?
@@1houndgal
Hmm.. There's also Radon? I think that's natural though. 🤷🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
@@1houndgal
Was it radium in the paint? Ahh... Didn't they use that on the watch dial stuff and all those women got mouth cancer from licking their brushes?
@@toejam6941 three mile island as well
Ahh yes, the real Silent Hill.
I think Centralia was actually the inspiration for the Silent Hill movie. The original games had no connection to it though
@@ZPixel17 Correct Centralia is only the inspiration for the movies.
@@ZPixel17 Yeah. From what I know, Silent Hill games never said that the town was burning. It was the Silent Hill movie.
*terrible film version of Silent Hill
Nah.
Absolutely fascinating. Not heard about this one before.
With inflation a home here will rent for $9500 per month, that fair right?(im not rich I’m just asking for a rich friend)
Learnt so much from this channel, great work and great history lesson, especially for this Aussie, most of the stories I'd never known happened - don't think a lot of news items in the US made it here prior to 2000s
Having been involved (emotionally) with Centralia since my return to Philadelphia in 1985, I have visited Centralia countless times over the years. I first saw it when it was in the process of being abandoned and the structures torn down. Your post was very well done for its brevity, you hit the important points and very accurately.
Very sad story.
My students did an assignment on this place on Thursday. I'm sooooooo salty about this timing 🤣🤣
Great video as always! Love doing my morning makeup to your episodes!
How frustrating. They could have easily dealt with this problem sooner, had they not been so greedy.
Capitalism for the win.
@@brucebaxter6923 you mean politicians.
@@brucebaxter6923 "Capitalism is when government bureaucracy prevents immediate action"
@@sandroantonio2834
Nope, capitalism,
Money comes before people.
And lazy! Wanting other parties to do the work and trying to find how they are not to blame.
I learned about the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire yesterday in a university lecture and immediately thought it would be a great idea for a future video.
I thought he already did that one?
@@jackieacheson4928 did he? I didn't look, but I don't remember seeing it and I think I've seen every one. I'll check
Update: I don't see it, but there's a lot so maybe I missed it in my scrolling
I thought you had already done a Centralia video a year ago but it turns out Bright Sun and Plainly Difficult both did videos on it. It certainly helps that your all really freaking talented storytellers/reporters.
Thankyou as always for this great channel.
Is it possible that early man discovered an underground fire and thus begun the mythos of hell?
That's actually a really interesting and potentially accurate conjecture! We know of occasional underground fires that at least seem to have started naturally and that have been around for centuries!
@@deprofundis3293 I started thinking about it after I learned that many of the great flood stories began by early man finding fish fossils in the mountains. Not knowing that it used to be the sea floor before the tectonic plates pushed it up, they surmised that a great flood had to have occurred
Indigenous Australians have their own mythology which includes Burning Mountain, the site if a coal-seam fire that was started by lightning or bush-fire literally millennia ago and is *still* burning.
Yep, that's Australia: even the ROCKS are trying to kill you.
The modern myth of the Christian hell is actually a creation of Dante’s Devine Comedy. The original hell parallel was the real location of Gehenna which is a valley believed by ancient Hebrews to be cursed. I’m not as familiar with non abrahamic depictions of hell parallels though.
There is another town called Laurel Run in PA which had a similar incident. I couldn't find much information on it though.
As sad and morbid as these stories can be, facts about how a coal mine fire like this are pretty interesting to learn about.
Exactly, we need to learn from our history and our screw ups on what not to do again.
Even story like this one (Centralia) that I have heard before are still so interesting to me. Its crazy that fire is still going after decades. I’ve been watching all of fascinating horror’s videos for the past few days! This channel is great!
You do such a good job covering the history and telling the unfolding of the event. Amazing work!