An underground coal fire has been burning beneath one Pennsylvania town since 1962

A fire ignited in the coal seams beneath Centralia, Pennsylvania, in 1962, likely from burning trash in an old mine pit, and has never been extinguished. By the 1980s the ground grew too hot and sinkholes too dangerous for the town to remain, and the state relocated nearly all its residents; the fire is still estimated to have enough fuel to keep burning for over a century more.

— U.S. Office of Surface Mining / historical record, Centralia, Pennsylvania — Mine fire ignited 1962