In 1962, volunteer firefighters burned a landfill in Centralia, PA, not knowing that they'd ignite a whole network of coal veins under the town.
Pavements buckled. Temperatures rose. Sinkholes clawed out swaths of sidewalks, spewing carbon monoxide.
The town was evacuated and stripped of its zip code.
And in the years since, Centralia's infamy has attracted swarms of disaster tourists, urban decay photographers, bored teens armed with aerosol cans.
As you'd expect, the road to Centralia now looks like:
Where are the dicks even leading us?
Oh.
Wow, rude.
Wow, hella rude.
Not even true though.
Hm.
You're an adult now, Pacman. You gobble whatever you want.
This is starting to feel like the internet.
Someone started a comment thread.
There are even banner ads.
Anonymous gripes and pleas.
A smattering of kindness.
Mostly, a lot of wilderness, cracked asphalt, blistered roads gone to seed.
Temperatures exceed 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the heart of the underground blaze. The coals will continue burning for another 250 years.
