This video was made possible by Squarespace. Build your website for 10% off at squarespace.com/HAI. The UK political system, my mixtape, the third
example—these are all things that are on fire. Also on fire is the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania,
or at least the ground under it. The story of Centralia begins pretty identically
to that of any other mid-Atlantic coal town. Some rich guy buys land, finds coal, mines
coal, town starts to exist, town starts to get cool with saloons and hotels and general
stores, there’s a heyday, and then town’s cool factor diminishes as coal demand decreases. Basically, by the 1960’s, all the mines
had closed and the population had decreased from it’s peak of 2,800 in 1890 to 1,400. Because they hadn’t yet invented the environment,
when it came to doing the annual landfill cleanup in May 1962, it was decided to just
burn the trash. So, they hired five firemen to set fire to
the fill then fight the firemen-set fire until it became not a fire. It turns out, though, that astonishingly,
in the coal mining town there was a coal mine under the landfill and it also turned out
that there was an open mineshaft under the vast pile of trash and it also turns out that
coal burns. Surprise, surprise, the fire spread underground
into the mine. That was stupid. While this theory is the predominant one,
there are other competing theories for how the fire started such as via a non fireman
induced fill fire or that it wasn’t even started in 1962—that it was just the continuation
of a coal fire from decades earlier. You see, there are three main factors leading
to the longevity of coal fires—coal burns slowly, coal is underground, and where there’s
coal there’s a lot of coal. Coal fires are therefore quite common and
while some can last for a few months and look like this, others can last a few millennia
and look like this. In the genre of Australian things that can
kill you, this coal fire in New South Wales, Australia has actively burned underground
for about 6,000 years. It advances at a steady pace of three feet
or one meter per year as it destroys the land above it which would be a bigger issue if
anyone lived here. But oh wait, people did live in Centralia,
Pennsylvania and so this coal fire was a massive issue! Obviously, as soon as it ignited Centralia
and Pennsylvania began a massive operation to extinguish the fire before its spread threatened
human life or property. Fire departments from across the state all
amassed upon Centralia in the days… oh, actually, no, sorry, I’m re-reading my notes. In response, the town of Centralia sent a
letter to the Lehigh Valley Coal Company, who owned the mine, informing them of the
fire. Hmm. Over the next few years they tried a few different
methods at stopping the fire including digging trenches and pumping water underground but
nothing worked. By 1972 the fire had grown to this immense
size. Oh, nope, zoom in—to this immense size. Yeah, these fires really don’t spread very
fast. Nonetheless, as it inched closer to the populated
part of town the effects grew as land became inhospitable. The fire would make the land unstable, open
up holes to the underworld, and emit carbon monoxide which has the effect of making humans
dead. By 1984, 22 years after it started, the underground
fire grew to a size where it could no longer be ignored. The federal government allocated $42 million
to buy all the houses in the town so the residents could move away and so they did. While 1,017 people lived in the town in 1980,
only 63 remained by 1990. These 63 that remained refused to leave with
the government’s offer to buy their homes so the government invoked eminent domain to
take ownership of their homes by force. While the government now owned the houses,
the residents still refused to leave and the government eventually gave up on trying to
evict them since it was bad for PR. The only upside of this was that, since the
government now technically owned their houses, the residents didn’t have to pay property
tax or mortgages. Now you know the one easy step for living
for free. Eventually the government got back into the
eviction mission and, by 2013, only seven of the town’s most stubborn residents remained. The government agreed to let them live the
rest of their lives in Centralia and, in exchange, the houses would be turned over to the government
upon their deaths. This town that was once home to thousands
now only has five houses, two churches, a cemetery, and a municipal building. The only real sign of the fire is the gasses
rising from the barren ground but soon, the fire will likely start to threaten the nearby
towns of Girardville, Ashland, and Aristes as it continues advancing slowly year by year. Obviously the Centralia story is not smart
so if you want to raise awareness for anti-stupidity you should set up a website at maybedontsettrashonfireoveracoalmineandthenforgettoputitout.com. With Squarespace, you can set that site up
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