In the ’80s, photographer Renée Jacobs touched down in Centralia, a small Appalachian mining town approaching its final chapter – due to the slow creep of an unstoppable fire, blazing 300 feet below ground.
Text: Miss Rosen – Photography: Renée Jacobs
ON 27 MAY, 1962, a long, shrill whistle swept through Centralia, sounding the alarm. An abandoned coal mine, now an unofficial trash dump, was on fire. Volunteer firefighters and borough workers moved quickly to extinguish the flames. But unto their knowledge the fire continued to blaze. 300 feet below ground, the flames made their way to a coal seam, before spreading through mine tunnels running beneath the small Appalachian town.
It was soon clear the fire hadn’t stopped. That July, town officials met with government representatives to discuss solutions – none of which worked. Instead, as the years passed, the situation only worsened. Carbon monoxide began to rise out of the mines, poisoning the air. Inside homes, black boxes monitored gas levels with a relentless ticking – only to issue an explosive scream when they reached dangerous heights. Warning signs began to litter the landscape, highlighting places it was unsafe for children to play. Some 1,800 boreholes were dug into the ground, releasing smoke from the slow-burning fire into the atmosphere.
In 1980, the US Bureau of Mines (USBM) released the Red Book, a report on the Centralia fire that concluded all efforts to extinguish it were futile. Three years later, a second report announced the fire was now burning on three, possibly four fronts, and would continue to spread to lands under neighbouring towns. After Centralia residents voted to take a federal government buyout on 11 August, 1983, blood-red numbers appeared on houses sold and slated for demolition.
That same year, photographer Renée Jacobs, then 21, decided to visit Centralia while working as photo editor at The Daily Collegian, the student newspaper of Penn State University. “It was really eerie,” she says, describing her first impressions of a town that was so small, she was able to cross it by foot in 30 minutes. “I didn’t know anyone, so I just walked around and people were hanging out on their front stoops. They were very open and friendly, and very savvy about trying to use the media to get their agenda across. Everyone was eager to share their views with me.”
What started as a weekend trip soon became a chronicle of the town’s final years. To get a better understanding of the issues at play, Jacobs moved into a house right on top of the impact zone, owned by local couple Catharene and Leon Jurg
