ABSTRACT
The beginning of the end, it is generally agreed, was in 1962 (“Centralia, Pennsylvania: Truth is Stranger than Fiction,” 2009). Someone burned trash in the pit of an abandoned strip mine in Centralia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was illegal; it was unethical; but people do this kind of thing all the time. An exposed vein of coal caught re. The re was doused with water and town ocials thought the re was extinguished. But it wasn’t, and the re erupted again, unexpectedly, in the same pit just a few days later. More water was applied and town ocials thought that was the end of it. But again, it wasn’t.
