Vol. 38,  No. 2,  Fall/Winter 2000 - "The Pennsylvania Geographer "

THE MINE FIRE IN CENTRALIA, PENNSYLVANIA

Karen M. Trzfonoff

Department of Geography and Geosciences

Bloomsburg University

Abstract

In May of 1962 a fire in a waste disposal site near Centralia Borough in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, quickly spread to an outcrop of the Buck Mountain Coal Bed and continued into an abandoned mine. It is still smoldering and burning today, 38 years later. This paper examines the changes to the physical and human landscapes in this Southern Columbia County area. The purpose of this article is to explore the historical geography of Centralia and to reconstruct the sequence of events that have occurred in order to see how the physical and cultural landscapes have responded to each other.