Pennsylvania's Ghost Town Above a 60-Year-Old Underground Coal Fire
Centralia Borough (most buildings demolished; ground remains accessible from PA-61 and PA-42), Centralia, PA 17927
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
No fee. Centralia is publicly accessible from PA-61 and PA-42; most former roadways are walkable.
Access
Limited Access
Cracked and partially subsided pavement, abandoned roadways, overgrown lots; ground steam vents in cold weather
Equipment
Photos OK
Centralia sat above one of the richest anthracite coal deposits in the Pennsylvania anthracite region. Active underground mining beneath and around the borough operated from the mid-19th century through the mid-20th. The town's population peaked at approximately 2,800 in the 1890s and held at around 1,500 through the 1950s.
The fire began on May 27, 1962. The Centralia Borough Council had hired five members of the volunteer fire company earlier in the month to clean up the town landfill, located in an abandoned strip-mine pit at the edge of the borough. The firefighters set the dump on fire to reduce its volume — a routine practice for the period. The fire was not fully extinguished. An unsealed opening at the bottom of the pit allowed the surface fire to enter the network of abandoned underground coal mines beneath the town.
Attempts to extinguish the fire began almost immediately and continued for the next two decades. Backfilling, flushing, trench excavation, and gas-monitoring campaigns each produced limited results before the fire moved beyond the affected zone. By the early 1980s, sustained ground subsidence, elevated carbon monoxide levels in basements, and a 1981 incident in which a 12-year-old boy nearly fell into a 150-foot sinkhole that opened in his grandmother's backyard convinced state and federal authorities that residents could not safely remain.
Congress appropriated $42 million for relocation in 1984. Most residents accepted federal buyouts and moved during the late 1980s. Pennsylvania condemned the borough in 1992 and acquired most remaining properties through eminent domain. The U.S. Postal Service revoked Centralia's ZIP code (17927) in 2002. Most of the town's buildings were demolished and the remaining street grid was largely covered or reclaimed by vegetation.
A portion of Pennsylvania Route 61, severely damaged by ground subsidence, was abandoned and closed to traffic. The cracked, buckled pavement of this stretch became known as the Graffiti Highway after a generation of artists covered it with murals and tags. In April 2020, the property's current owners covered the entire section with dirt to end the unauthorized public access that had developed there.
A handful of residents — five as of 2020 — negotiated to remain in their homes for life. Four cemeteries within the borough boundary continue to be maintained and used for burials. The fire continues to burn at depths of up to 300 feet over an estimated 3,700-acre area. Engineering assessments suggest it could continue burning for another 250 years.
Sources
Centralia's defining strangeness is environmental, not paranormal. Steam vents rise from ground fissures during cold weather. The smell of sulfur drifts across the former town. Sections of pavement subside or buckle without warning. Vegetation covers what were once streets, sidewalks, and the foundations of more than 500 homes. The cumulative effect is a landscape that reads as unfamiliar even to visitors who have studied photographs in advance.
The paranormal accounts associated with Centralia are post-evacuation and largely folkloric. Visitors describe figures observed at distance in the steam vents, generally interpreted as former residents — a folkloric framing that has appeared in regional ghost-hunting publications since the 2000s. Voices in the wind across the empty grid are commonly reported, though acoustic conditions across an open and largely empty former town readily produce such impressions without paranormal explanation.
The four maintained cemeteries within the borough — St. Ignatius, Odd Fellows, St. Mary's, and the Free Christian Cemetery — produce a different category of accounts. Visitors describe the cemeteries as densely emotionally felt, particularly during family memorial visits by descendants of former residents. The cemeteries remain in active use for those families that retain plot rights.
Centralia appears widely in popular culture, including the Silent Hill video-game franchise's atmospheric basis and the 2007 film. We frame these references as cultural products built on the physical reality of the fire rather than as evidence of paranormal activity at the site.
Media Appearances
Walk the empty street grid of a borough nearly entirely demolished and abandoned because of the underground coal mine fire that has been burning beneath it since 1962. Steam still rises from ground vents in cold weather. The former Graffiti Highway section of Route 61, covered with dirt in 2020, is no longer accessible.
Visit the four remaining cemeteries inside the borough boundary — the only well-maintained sites still in active use. The St. Ignatius Cemetery on the hill above the former town sits above the fire and is among the most photographed locations associated with Centralia.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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