Pennsylvania's 50-Year-Old Coal Fire

SciShow takes you to Centralia, Pennsylvania, site of one of the oldest, biggest coal fires in the United States, and explains the chemistry of spontaneous combustion.
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[@sambuechel9632]

Back track that ending, I wana hear about this 6000 year old fire

[@tedsmith6137]

This might enlighten you a little. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain

[@steampunkerella]

if I recall correctly the Silent Hill games are based off that town

[@marisabeltran3084]

Noooo way🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

[@RequiemPoete]

You're close. The Town in the movie adaptation is based on this town. The Game Town isn't.

[@secretaltruism4174]

"And yet that's nothing compared to Australia's..." is a very common phrase.

[@MegaRazorback]

Yes...us Australians seem to have the best/worst things don't we?

[@thomasraahauge5231]

Don't try to top an Aussie. Ain't gonna work . . .

[@Titus-as-the-Roman]

T.R., would never even think of trying it, Aussies comes from an original tough stock that would rather fight than told it's wrong, much like our first frontier folk here in the states, except we're now so entrenched in Liberal politics that a good deal of the population has turned to Jelly thinking there's no tax high enough.

[@alext9067]

Titus Tucker We don't need any more taxes. The gov't's already a wash in our money. I think what the Dems want is some resonsible spending. Like health insurance and better care for veterans not so much "Naiton Building", etc (insert taking over countries and inserting our own dictators)

[@JohnSmith-ch6pt]

@@Titus-as-the-Roman trust Americans to look at the worst parts of another country in jealousy. Your Rupert Murdoch has ruined more things in Australia than I can count.

[@stiimuli]

Why does SciShow never show video of the subjects being discussed? Its always just sparse pictures and sometimes not even that.

[@sac12389]

copy right?

[@MrErikcool]

More work for them

[@Razzfazz87]

Next to copy right like sac12389 suggested, it's not what they want to do. Instead they give a short overview with enough information to spark initial interest in the viewers. They also provide sources in the video description (something that should be mandatory for news outlets but whatever) so that you have an entrance point into the subject rather than being left to read the wiki-source section.

[@wwaitkus]

Licensing and copyright infringement. Thank all the DMCA crybabies and asshole DMCA frauds for that.

[@LeoMRogers]

possibly paying royalties, extra editing, stuff like that. Everything costs money (and there is a way for you to help (subbable)).

[@theoriginalsache]

I have been to Centralia! My mom grew up two towns over in Shamokin. I live about 45 minutes from there and it's a common field trip for science students. Centralia is one of the few mines where the state doesn't own the mining rights and the majority of the holdouts refused to leave town because they thought the state wanted to steal from them. Not because a sinkhole had almost swallowed a boy when it opened underneath him. Or when the temperature of the gasoline at a local gas station had exceeded it's flashpoint and could've exploded at any minute. Not to mention all of the carbon monoxide poisoning. Sigh. It should be noted that the coal burning in Centralia is not the soft bituminous type that Hank mentioned. The coal seams in Eastern PA are ALL anthracite (aka "hard coal"). Difficult to ignite but slow burning and almost impossible to put out once the fire actually gets going.

[@joeyservo]

My mother is also from Shamokin, and yeah Centralia is a really interesting, bizarre, and downright eerie place to visit. I grew up in Delaware but have been visiting Shamokin for decades to see family. I find the entire history and culture around coal mining extremely fascinating. I have a few artifacts from my mom's father (who was a blaster in the mines), and a really nice original panoramic photo of the Glen Burn Colliery from the early 20th century.

[@NosDarkly]

At least there's a handy place to put our witches.

[@IceMetalPunk]

Did they turn you into a newt...before you got better, I mean?

[@Nabend1402]

Only if you use clean witch technology.

[@ljmastertroll]

This is the American Hogwarts?

[@NosDarkly]

Yeah, I was Speaker of the House for a while; glad that nightmare's over.

[@woodfur00]

Dude. Not funny.

[@debhausen]

Us Pennsylvanians like to drive past Centralia on the way to Knoebels, an awesome amusement park with free admission! PA is the best!

[@Philliesfanno1]

Knoebels is free? I didn't know that lol

[@debhausen]

Yes you buy ride tickets like a carnival but admission is free. It's an awesome place! The rollercoasters and water rides are awesome and they also have a really nice campground for weekenders.

[@ionickushgod406]

i love knobles

[@georgesabol459]

Deborah Knapp are you from ct??

[@zolris5498]

i've been to knoebels. great place.

[@nbkwolverine]

ahha...this is the town that bought about the idea of Silent Hill.

[@drenidautaj]

nah there is another town that always covered with mist but i forgot the name just look up most scary places on earth that's gotta be there

[@imperatormegatron2014]

not really, Silent Hill the game was inspired by Twin Peaks TV show, fog - by Stephen King, and the movie was inspired by the game coal fire was just some random cool stuff some guy in the movie production team knew, which has nothing to do with the town itself which is a copy of a copy of a copy

[@meh-87]

Nothing but Trouble with Chevy Chase and Dan Akroyd

[@thomasraahauge5231]

Silent Hill! Sile-e-e-e-e-e-ent Hi-i-ill! I like that movie. I never played the video game. Not into those kind of games. Finally, a movie, where Sean Bean doesn't die! :-D

[@GrandCorsair]

It's a bit frustrating to hear it incorrectly credited as a inspiration for the games when that's more of a claim the movie made.

[@SpiralMagic]

I grew up near Centralia, and remain in Pennsylvania. I remember driving through the town with my great-aunt in the early eighties. She explained about the fire as we passed through, and said that you can feel the heat coming from the ground. At that time the main streets were lined with businesses, homes, and telephone wires. It was about the size of my own hometown, similar to any other small coal-town in central PA. The next time I visited was many years later, in the late nineties. The town was gone. We thought we couldn't find it for a time, though we were really driving back and forth through what used to be downtown Centralia. When we stopped at the intersection the map insisted was the place, we saw the sidewalks that border nothing, the shape and outside walls of a school, and a bench engraved with the name and zip code. Everything in my memory was just... gone. We explored for a bit, found the place where a whole block had fallen into the earth, now a steamy, smoky nightmare. We drove out of town, parked at a somewhat hidden turn-off and climbed the earthen barrier to the old the section of Rt. 61, where they had to re-route because a section of road fell in. There was still snow on the ground. It was a longer walk than we anticipated, and steep in the snow-covered ground. We met people on their way down, and asked if there was anything to see, or if it was snow-covered. They laughed and told us to just keep walking. At one point, as we neared the top of the hill, there was a line where the snow ended. From there up, the ground was too warm for snow. The graffiti began, and we found the place where the road caved in. It was smaller than I'd pictured, only a crevice a few feet long, but smoke was rising from the crack. On a rock in the center, someone had spray-painted 'Downtown Hell'. I've been back a few times since, but two years ago the smoke was no longer pouring out, and much of the old downtown is being reclaimed by nature. You can still find a crumbling wall or old sidewalk, but it no longer has the creep factor. Now it's just a sad reminder of a lost town.

[@miri2810]

I really appreciate that you use metric measurements now! It's also a nice video :)

[@MuzikBike]

So if you're there, you could randomly get swallowed up by a fiery sinkhole? Well then. Chernobyl suddenly sounds a bit more appealing

[@ronaldmcreynolds7345]

Muzik, that was funny.

[@williamhealey6158]

Ikr

[@rainydaylady6596]

I wonder if they could set up an electric power generator that works something like a nuclear plant. Water is heated up in one system and that heat is transferred to a clean system (not in contact with nuclear materials) and the clean, hot steam is used to drive the turbines. Not sure how it could be done, but it seems like a huge waste of energy that could be used for some good.

[@zanderthinks]

+Darcy Kahler Thats how coal power plants work.

[@shiningarmor2838]

We should build a power plant on top of the fires

[@Silkendrum]

The fire is traveling. You'd have to keep moving the plant.

[@ronaldmcreynolds7345]

Fifty years, not one cooked hotdog or burger. What a waste.

[@itsonlyafleshwound9024]

To be fair, i wouldn't be to happy eating a burger laced with all those chemicals fuming out.

[@xxkq0]

If a hug is worth a thousand words, do you think my examiners will accept hugs as valid replacement for written exam essays??

[@ssppeellll]

Only if they recognize the value of a hug.

[@thegardenofeatin5965]

As long as it's an MLA formatted hug.

[@thomasraahauge5231]

The problem with writren exams is, that you don't get to meet your examiners. So, what is your plan? Telekinetic hugs? Send a hug-o-gram? Secretly track down and hug the examiners? I need answers . . .

[@TylerDalious]

This is a town that I've been through so many times, its pretty much part of my childhood. My great-grandparents are buried not far at all from the mine, just across the road from the main cemetery you see when you travel there. As far as I know its not as much an environmental disaster as it is a social breakdown of the town. People lived there for generations. People that worked in the mine, good people. I know those who used to live there, damn good people that had memories they shared with me. I'm glad to see that it's mentioned, just not that its more of a gloss over. Maybe its just the night I'm having, but it makes me sad to think of those who lost their homes, and those who only have memories to hold of the place they loved.

[@GoBears1313]

I grew up around this area. It's heartbreaking what became of Centralia. All because of a careless fire.

[@alexjonezNH]

There's a town in Maine with a rather interesting tie to good ol' Centralia. A town that's produced nightmare fuel for a good many years now ;-;

[@Alaska1925]

Derry?

[@alexjonezNH]

Alaska1925 I can't think up a witty response to that. Derry's influence is affecting me from an entire state away!

[@Ekreagan]

Centralia! I've driven through the town many times on the way to my grandmother's house. The abandoned section of road is super eerie and covered in awesome graffiti. Anyone in the area should stop by for a visit!

[@incrediblyStupid678]

Nice! This is the town that inspired Silent Hill! So gonna watch this! :)

[@AdrianLikesFlags]

No "Floor is Lava!" comments yet? Intriguing...

[@tiffanieh2787]

THE FLOOR IS LAVA!!!!!!!

[@SpeedyFAST2006]

Oof

[@jakegrist8487]

I lasted 46 seconds before I was sick of the narrator and his chipper happiness and completely unnatural audio cuts. Moving on. KZbinrs should really consider studying journalism, at least as a hobby. It is the science of storytelling, merged with classic theater decorum, and how to connect with an audience. An amateur who has never studied journalism is like a dog fart at a black tie wedding. It just doesn't sit well with the guests.

[@Stig007]

this may sound dumb but can it not be flooded?

[@daniellbondad6670]

How about building a 200m high dam to impound the nearest river? Trucks will make a secondary channel leading to the town.But that is too costly. We can cloud seed the area 3 times a week.We can also make concrete hills to divert the rain inwards to town.

[@ammelr]

+Stig Cruise My guess is that if you tried to flood it, you would end up leaching mercury, arsenic, and other stuff into the groundwater.

[@MuzikBike]

Then why not extract (and potentially sell) the metals for industrial purposes? Especially seeing that mercury is kind of expensive

[@ChaitanyaSoni96]

it goes in the groundwater dummass

[@xtrememanster]

the water most likely evaporates, and even if it does put out the fire the heat is already in the rocks so the water will just evaporate until more oxygen comes down and ignites again

[@rmt3589]

My worldbuilding has turned into an environmental commentary on plastics and fossil fuels... I just wanted a world without usable access to metals. Why is that so hard to figure out? I'm learning a lot regardless, and have collected amazing ideas.

[@boataxe4605]

Wow, that’s even longer than Springfield’s tire fire!

[@Correctrix]

6,000-year-old fire? Must have been from Adam's first campfire, when he had no clothes in Eden. Ahem.

[@Alteringrealitystudios]

love the show. Knowledge rules. Excelsior

[@Monochromicornicopia]

This video needed more footage of burning coal and less footage of hank's face. I know what he looks like goddammit.

[@sebbes333]

Would it be possible to start to dig out the opposite (from the fire) side of the coal vein and thus reduce the amount of time it will burn and also get some use out from the coal?

[@Silkendrum]

That's coal country, Pennsylvania. The veins go everywhere, branch off, and go very deep. It's not like a subway tunnel....

[@jonkern2325]

Sion they tried it numerous times. I'm from the area. And this is real coal country. There's more ways for it to run than 1, it could of possibly even spread it worse if they tried now. They're letting it burn til it's done.

[@Musicrafter12]

I actually went to Centralia and walked on the old highway... It was actually quite disappointing. I didn't even see any smoke at all.

[@stephenmwyatt2]

The city council had a scorched earth policy

[@yugij0319]

These things, more specifically, the Pennsylvania one, helped to inspire Silent Hill.

[@venerable_nelson]

+yugij0319 Not helped, it DID inspire Silent Hill. Disappointed that they did not mention that...

[@yugij0319]

I was also disappointed when they did not mention it. The first thing I thought of was Silent Hill, when I read the title.

[@brittanyleslie9950]

Same gets

[@brittanyleslie9950]

*here

[@thomasraahauge5231]

They went all over the burning coal in the extra material . . .

[@erikl4281]

Who is here because you are running out of content to watch due to the coronavirus lockdown?

[@Qwazier3]

Used to drive through Centralia on my way up state to go camping. Once I saw a 10 foot square patch of 3 inch blue and orange flames burning as if it were a stove top on the ground. When I returned after my camping trip that 10 foot square patch was just black sooty ground. The flames had left. It is a beautiful area up there and the little flame patches that pop up are cool to watch especially at night.

[@Philliesfanno1]

I've been there, only once though

[@HungryGuyStories]

Why don't they build something akin to a geothermal plant over these coal fires and reclaim some of the energy?

[@foxymetroid]

Toxic fumes are bad for workers, plus the unstable ground would make building anything there a really bad idea.

[@Terrorkekx]

What a waste :(

[@daweller]

its ok its the cycle of life

[@jetjazz05]

I've been there several times since I live about two hours away. Twenty years ago, though, it was much more exciting. The houses used to be there as well but they demolished them.

[@MSG685]

So there is no way to utilize this as an energy source ?

[@hglasier]

I read an account of a coal mine fire in Wales UK where due to the heat a tropical garden was created on surface.

[@AlexBradleyPopovich]

No. The ground is highly unstable and unsafe. The fumes are also dangerous. Nothing can be built there. The fire also shifts, so the life span of such a facility would be short.

[@cinderblockstudios]

I'm usually a proud Pennsylvanian, but this is a little embarrassing.

[@jeremiahkennedy1683]

And this is how the battle of middle Earth began lol

[@mattman74123]

How long do scientists estimate the coal fire in Australia will last?

[@opaqueify]

I live in PA

[@smengel3]

Me too

[@Ilivenearahouze]

No one gives A fuck

[@InorganicVegan]

Ilivenearahouze "No one gives A fuck" Learn when to capitalize.

[@WatzUpzPeepz]

Diana Peña Wow. You new here by any chance?

[@Lrix]

Ilivenearahouze That's pretty much everyone's reaction to living in PA

[@yoshimansxl]

Can't we just use these fires to generate electricity?

[@leerman22]

Nope. Your heat source will always be moving away from your heat exchanger.

[@sac12389]

better yet smores.

[@MasterLagoz]

leerman22 Maybe you aren't trying hard enough!

[@hiddenchapter]

Geothermal energy FTW!

[@vinnylepre98]

Way to far under ground to generate energy. And it's way to dangerous there because there are parts of the ground that you can fall through.

[@natalierau9968]

My grandma grew up a half hour from Centralia so I've been there a few times. It's not dangerous or as rundown as described in the video. The mine tour is a quality tour and the mountains are beautiful. There's not much to do because there are so few people there. But it's called a ghost town for a reason, and that's cool to see.

[@ericpaulgoldie]

Any chance on the World's Biggest Catastrophe waiting to happen "Runit Island" ?

[@xtianmills]

wait wait wait..... dont end the video yet i wanna know about that 6000 year old fire.... who started it? why did they start it? and in a few hundred years will that mountian become mordor?

[@AmyWeidman]

I've driven by Centralia a couple of times. It's a bit creepy... >.>

[@AnimeShinigami13]

what about stopping the coal fire with a fracking pump? Drop that sucker into the mine and pump water underground. Maybe we can use something reviled to stop carbon emissions from Centralia. I mean am I the only one that thinks letting an underground seam of coal 13km long burn (or other massive coal fires for that matter) is a good thing? But with Centralia we have a living laboratory, just like in Yellowstone and Hawaii Volcanoes national park, to study something massively dangerous (aka volcanoes). So why not use Centralia as an experiment to find out how to put out coal seam fires? Who knows, maybe we'll learn something and save CO2 emissions in the process. But besides water, why not just pump CO2 from the atmosphere into the mine?

[@Stevesrssrssrs]

Whoopty-do! There's an underground fire, I believe coal, in Kentucky that's been burning for over 100 years. Some people still live near there, but the area is mostly a ghost town, due to the century-long underground fire!!

[@GrowlyBear917]

Back in the early 1980s there was a wooden sign that read "Borough of Centralia" as you entered the area. Someone placed a bumper sticker on the sign. It said "We Burn Coal". I have a picture of it, and the wooden signs for municipalities have all been replaced by the smaller metal signs. Wonder if my picture would be worth anything?

[@ilililhy1]

That Placed call Hell, where Satan dwells has always been underground,Hot Buring and the Souls of Many are there now.Wake up.Jesus came to set the Captives Free,Jesus Paid our sin debt on the Cross of Calvary.

[@tuseroni]

shouldn't filling it with CO2 stop the reaction? maybe it's to do with the scale cus it seem smothering the fire should put it out, or getting ahead of it and digging out a firewall.

[@ericvilas]

In places like mining towns, they designed the tunnels to prevent a buildup of CO2 so the miners wouldn't suffocate, those are really hard to put out (2:46)

[@JacobShepley]

oxidation needs 3 things: fuel (coal) oxidiser (oxygen) and heat yes cutting off any one of these three would put the fires out, however, like Hank said: these coal fires can start spontaneously just from being somewhat warm. if you did manage to pour enough CO2 into the mines to snuff them out you would need to continue pumping CO2 in there until its thermal mass decreased down to below its ignition temperature. the amount of latent heat in the ground, in the surrounding rock, in the coal itself would be incredibly hard to cool. you could need to suffocate the mine for years without interruption.

[@StevieRay9O]

Also part of problem is that there is water & other rocks/minerals that when heated actually produce oxidising gas-mixtures, so it's impossible to starve the fires of oxygen!

[@vonschweringen8321]

Someone mentioned that the coal here in PA is anthracite coal, not bituminous. Once the anthracite gets going, good luck putting it out. Also, nearby Ashland(bigger town; attached to same coal seam as Centralia) will be at risk in 200+ years. Probably Mt. Carmel also.

[@inkling139]

Spontaneous combustion or has one of Smaug's relatives taken up residence? Underground coal fires probably happened occasionally before society fully understood what was going on, I'm curious what kinds of myths and folklore beliefs might be connected to them.

[@littlemagicks5468]

Silent Hill was actually based off of Centralia. Thats where all the fog, abandoned-ness (i guess?) and broken roads came from. It's really quite interesting. Or maybe its just me.

[@timetuner]

I've gone on a road trip to Centralia and I can assure you that it isn't as impressive as you're thinking. That pic at 0:27 is of the singular most apocalyptic looking thing there from the most generous camera angle manageable. It's the only badly messed up part of a 1-ish mile section of damaged road 100-ft off to the side of the perfectly functional replacement. No abandoned houses, they were all taken down. Just an orthodox cemetery on top of a hill with crumbling/overgrown sidewalks with a few old foundations on the side. Had a park ranger tail us around as well.

[@benniejeeper]

video should be titled talking about said coal fire....WE WANT TO SEE IT NOT WATCH YOU TALK ABOUT IT

[@Maxid1]

Why are there almost no thermographic images of Centralia? Thousands and thousands of surface pictures, graffiti highway, cracked pavement, half a house and graffitied houses, but only a few of close surface thermal images (mostly useless) and none focused on (aerial phots or video) the 153 acre land mass of Centralia? This seems odd to me. We have IR drones so why are there no public videos or photos?

[@danr.5017]

Holy crap! ...can we monetize this? Run some copper tubing down the, pump in some distilled water, Instant coal fire power plant. It's almost impossible to put these anyway, might as well do something useful.

[@FasterthanLight11]

I've been to Centralia a few times. each time except one it was moderately foggy, just screaming Silent Hill... The time I went when it was sunny it look just like any other ghost town but with smoke billows every so often. Ahh... Summer memories.

[@scotx1307]

Today on SciShow, Hank talks about Silent Hill. You all thought it was just a game, but no- there's science behind it too! Lol Ah, what a mess we humans can make. Later ya'll!

[@builderdex]

Considering that Centralia is fubar,.. Maybe they can dump fracking water there. It would provide a good place to dump it and maybe they can get enough volume to drown that fire!

[@Phytologics]

benzene and methane are not combustion products of a coal fire. Think about it, one is a flammable gas and the other a flammable liquid, neither would survive a fire intact, they'd be oxidized to CO2 and water.

[@danielkzlai]

How about covering all the possible routes for oxygen to get in with dry ice? o.o That'd cut out the oxygen after they finish burning the oxygen between the soil. But they'd have to solve the problem about land crumbling and bringing more oxygen...

[@Titus-as-the-Roman]

This is one factor that made the Permian/Triassic Mass Extinction so deadly. When the huge plume of magma started burning it's way through the Earth in what today is Siberia it also burnt it's way through one of the largest coal fields of it's time, releasing so much CO2 that it set up self powering cycle that almost sterilized the planet of higher life forms.

[@MrKDogg]

I was just at the Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine and Steam Train in Ashland, PA right across the mountain from Centralia. Our tour guide told us the current population is 6. They are still there because if they leave they lose their mineral rights, so if the government were to then go in and dig out the "burnable material" (aka coal) in an effort to halt the smoldering and burning, guess who gets the money? Certainly not the former residents.

[@Partstim]

There's an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. If a Hug is also worth a thousand words ... a Hug = a picture. What about a picture OF a hug? What's the value there?

[@TylerDWard]

Why hasn’t Main Stream Media Covered This Fact, When All They Do Is Talk About Climate Change...

[@MrTerradell]

The inspiration for Konami's Silent Hill series. It's interesting to think that this fire had already been burning for more than 30 years before they released the game, and it burned the day that Silent Hill: Homecoming killed the franchise, and it will continue to burn long after the series gets a good sequel or reboot, 200 years from now.

[@coreymicallef365]

Here's a solution, dry ice, chuck tons of dry ice on the fire, it will work in two ways, a) it will melt and turn to CO2 starving the fire of oxygen and b) it will absorb massive amounts of energy lowing the temperature to levels low enough either put the fire out or lower the heat enough for conventional firefighting to work. Or just build a giant dome around it. One final idea, if you cant put it out and it's burning that fast, get a turbine, some water, pipes and a giant heat exchanger and builds a mini power plant, the coal is burning anyway and this way it doesn't even have to be mined.

[@MrNosterp]

Even though no one really owns space, you still can't really name a president of space unless you have the current residents of space (i.e. those on ISS), though you could name a king, emperor, or other type of monarch without any objection, so long as they do not try to tax or inhibit Travel or through it

[@borhom1999]

I know I might sound ignorant here, excuse my lack of knowledge on the subject, but couldn't we be possibly be making use of this coal to make power, it seems the burning coal is going to waste when we could be usefully taking advantage of it to preserve our Earth's limited resources of fossil fuels for future generations, and to give us more time to figure out a foolproof plan for power.

[@bookwormaddict3933]

Not that much smoke in Centralia anymore and please don't trespass on private property. Don't have your dogs use the cemeteries as their potties (it is hallowed ground after all) and be careful of graffiti highway as it is difficult for ambulance crews to get injured folk out of the braitch holes there. Use your brains in Centralia please.

[@uzaiyaro]

I drove past Burning Mountain one day - it's "just" off the New England Highway. But when I got there, I found that it was a near 2km walk to get to the actual site, so just got back in the car and left. But the point is, this fire burns so close to the surface that you can feel it on the ground.

[@drwn1791]

Did you know that Coal was formed from the large decayed trees and animal carcasses as a result of the worldwide flood in Noah's day, when God caused it to rain for forty days and forty nights? God used a strong wind to buried the trees and carcasses of man and beast in the earth under great pressure. Genesis 6:17,18 Genesis 8:1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged;

[@alext9067]

I think this guy should calm down a bit. And isn't there a fire burning that's 2500 years old somewhere in the middle east? Maybe it's not coal, but it's something.

[@jeretoon8350]

It's because the coal in Pennsylvania makes more toxic fumes. Also scientists expect it to run for 200 more years Edit:I saw a tv show and this fire is more infamous because it was a different type of more efficient coal, but it released more toxic fumes.

[@Faboomium]

It's cool that you guys are contributing to these project, but aren't you sending an awful message by saying you can buy the presidential elections... of space? :P

[@Tyrantus4]

Think of all those RESOURCES that are being wasted! It makes me sick thinking our coal is burning away before we can use it

[@Roach570]

This is awesome that we made it on to this amazing show! I live down the road from Centralia, and go hiking there quite often.

[@SuperTwacks]

Centralia is spooky as shit. As someone who lives an hour away i've found my way into that neck of the woods and didn't know about it back then, just suddenly in this strange, deserted town that reeks like hell (literally) and every now and then smoke just emerges from the ground.

[@QuannanHade]

I was almost going to chastise you for not mentioning Burning Mountain, but I heard your shout out just before my thoughts were properly formulated for angry comment-rant...

[@TheWolfHowling]

Centralia was on the 6th episode of the first season of the History Channel's Life After People, which is how I first heard about Centralia, Pennsylvania.

[@thenekom]

Been there. Weird place. I recommend visiting in the winter with snow on the ground, check out the closed portion of route 60 (or 61? something like that) in the snow, it's surreal.

[@Zeldaschampion]

Why they use the energy from the heat an pipe line it to nearby towns. Kind of a waste just leaving it alone.

[@jojoturano1]

Hello these coal fires have another 250 years worth of coal yet to burn. We could heat a lot of houses with that heat that is coming off of those fires. . It's amazing how many coal fires burn around the world down in the ground. Peace, Joanne

[@blackrose914]

These fires are no mear accident or happenstance; our Lord Gwyn has rekindled the First Flame; Hank can only dream of being so grossly incandescent...

[@user-zp5vt1tu6b]

I was there, pretty neat. I used a non-contact thermometer on some of the cracks in that road. During october I was getting readings of around 150F

[@madthumbs1564]

She can't be president of space. I claimed space a very long time ago. Y'all owe me back taxes on breathing and occupying my space.

[@apollyon0810]

One of my favorite movies from the 80s: Nothing But Trouble. It's on Netflix. Look it up.

[@glenngoldberg]

Sci show, could you add captions for people that can't hear very well or need to watch videos in a quiet place? If you could, that would be great! :)

[@unvergebeneid]

I'm actually surprised that there are so many coal mines that don't need to be continuously pumped dry. I mean I'm assuming here that if such a fire happened in a mine where you could just stop the pumps and the thing would fill with water, it wouldn't be much of a problem.

[@ivyhe7234]

It's just an stupid idea. But I am just wondering if there is anyway to make the coal burn faster, so that it would take less time and reduce the amount of toxic stuff(if it does reduce)?

[@JonathanBreckenridge]

Why don't we drill some holes, run some pipes, and use the heat to create some geo-thermal power plants? Seems like if this stuff is going to burn we might as well capitalize on it??

[@picturesonradio]

Dumb question! If you injected water into these underground coal fire, would it be possible to create geothermal energy?

[@finlaywilliamson6196]

Episode idea! Why don't plants get cancer? Surely trees hundreds of years old should have several mutations that would cause cancer?

[@SlimThrull]

So, is there an reason we can't pump lots of a non reactive gas down there? Make it denser than air and it should smother the flames, right? I imagine someone has pointed this out already but I'm unsure as to why this wouldn't work.

[@chucutitan]

When I visited Scranton as a child in 1955, there was a longstanding fire. It was explained to me that carbon monoxide was rampant in the town.

[@douglasmcneil8413]

If the underground coal fires can be mapped reliably with infrared satellites you have a continuous energy source for a couple of hundred years. It might be a little expensive to start up. But that seems like an awful lot of heat energy going to waste.

[@NWEuroLangs]

Why not try smothering it with (dry) ash from coal-fired power stations? Making sure all coke is sifted out from such ash it ought to be possible to smother any fire with it.

[@clnmyjts]

well if these under ground coal fire with smoke coming up out of earths cracks and pits etc etc thus and these underground fires have been common place for thousands of years? then I`d have to say we have a pretty damn good reason why hell fire is in the bible.

[@alexcameron2880]

I know nothing of mining, but can't they just go to the opposite side of the fire and mine the fuel to starve the fire so that it won't burn for 250 more years? Have a safe buffer zone between the fire and coal and mine it to take away it's fuel source.