Then it was expanded to include half the town. Then the state went after the whole town. With adequate fuel and oxygen, a mine fire can burn virtually indefinitely. In the four decades since the Centralia fire began, there have been some 209 underground mine fires in Pennsylvania. Only Centralia has experienced a government-sponsored depopulation effort.
Nobody wants to talk about that.
Like much of what is said about Centralia, Comarnisky's statement is one man's opinion. One thing that everyone agrees on, though, is that there is a huge amount of coal under the land where a town called Centralia once stood. Its value and access are where people's opinions differ. To some, the money doesn't matter. In 1995, Blaschak Coal Corporation filed an application to strip-mine the entire borough of Centralia.