Centralia Pennsylvania

A 2005 Photo Documentary

A short walk up from the smoldering hillside, you'll find the Saint Peter-Paul Orthodox Cemetery.  Between this cemetery, an adjacent cemetery and Rt. 61 used to stand a church.

An old vent pipe.

The heated ground seems to stop at the boundary to the cemetery.

Above, there is still beauty in Centralia

To the right, a view towards smoke rising beyond the cemetery.

To the left, a look from the old section of Rt. 61 looking north.  The sign to the left is the large arrow indicating the detour. 

Below, a sign warning you of the dangers ahead.

Down old Rt. 61 and around the bend in the road.  Looking ahead you'll see a buckled highway... and smoke rising out of a large crack in the roadway.

Over the past 7 years that we have been visiting Centralia, this crack and been widening and deepening.  the hillside above has also been shifting and subsiding.  The fire is moving under the highway and towards Ashland, the next town over.

This area is above the highway.  A large area of devastation that you don't want to venture down into.  These areas are quite dangerous.  The ground can collapse at any time.  carbon monoxide, a heavy, odorless, deadly gas can collect in these trenches and overtake a person.

Looking south into 
what was Byrnesville.

To the left is pictured the Byrnesville wash house and lamp house for Germantown Colliery.  It was used by the miners of the nearby mine to shower after a long hard day in the mines prior to return to home for the day. It also served as the boiler house.   In more recent years it was used to store ashes for the highway treatment in winter weather.  Today it is abandoned.

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