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The Smoldering Ruins of Centralia, written by Alan Bellows.

There is a small town in Pennsylvania called Ashland, where Route 61's northbound traffic is temporarily branched out onto a short detour.

Exactly what the detour is circumventing is not immediately clear to travellers.

However, few passes by pay it mind. A detour is nothing unusual.

But anyone who ignores the detour and ventures along the original Route 61 highway

will soon encounter an abrupt and unexplained road closure. Beyond it lies a town filled with

overgrown streets, smouldering earth and ominous warning signs. It is the remains of the borough of Centralia.

Centralia, Pennsylvania was never a particularly large community, but it was once a lively and

industrial place. At its peak, the coal mining town was home to 2,761 souls, but today the population of its

cemeteries far out numbers that of its living residents.

The series of events which led to the community's demise, slowly diminishing its numbers

to less than a dozen, began about 44 years ago.

In 1962, workers set a heap of trash ablaze in an abandoned mine pit, which was used as the borough's landfill.

The burning of excess trash was a common practice, yet, at that particular time and place,

there existed a dangerous condition.

An exposed vein of anthracite coal.

The highly flammable mineral was unexpectedly ignited by the trash fire, promoting a quick effort to put it out.

The flames on the surface were successfully

...