In 1962, Centralia, Pennsylvania, located about 40 miles northwest of Allentown and 50 miles northeast of Harrisburg, was a thriving community of over 2,000 residents.
It had its own school district, seven churches, five hotels, two theatres, a bank, post office, and fourteen general and grocery stores.
Today, just a handful of people still live in the borough.
The streets are abandoned, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania owns most of the homes, and ominous signs warn people of toxic fumes and collapsing ground.
Centralia is located atop a huge vein of anthracite coal.
In neighboring towns, museums describe the coal-mining industry that was once the major employer in the area.
There are various accounts of how the tragedy unfolded.
The one most supported by evidence is that in May of 1962, the Centralia Borough Council hired the volunteer fire company to clean up the town landfill, located in an abandoned strip mine pit.
The firefighters, as they had in previous years, set the dump on fire, and let it burn for a while.
Additionally, a trash hauler dumped hot ash and/or coal discard from coal burners into the open trash pit.
The hot refuse penetrated the bottom of the pit to the vein of coal underneath.
The firefighters doused the fire but it kept coming back.
Unknown to residents at the time, it actually was burning underground and had spread through a hole in the rock pit into the abandoned coal mines beneath the streets of Centralia.
In 1979, a gas station owner lowered a stick into one of his underground tanks to check the fuel level.
When he pulled it out it seemed hot, so he lowered a thermometer down and was shocked to see that the temperature in the tank was 172 degrees Fahrenheit.
The problem began receiving national attention after February 14, 1981, when 12-year-old Todd Domboski fell into a hole about four feet wide and 150 feet deep that had suddenly opened underneath him as he was standing in his grandmother's backyard.
Fortunately his older cousin pulled him to safety, as the heat and the carbon monoxide in the hole would have killed him instantly if he had fallen just a little deeper.
By 1984, about seven million dollars had been spent unsuccessfully trying to put out the fire.
Experts determined that the only option remaining was a massive trenching operation, at a cost of about $600 million, with no guarantee of success.
Instead, the state of Pennsylvania proposed buying up all of the property and evacuating the borough's residents, at a cost of $42 million in state funds.
A referendum was held and the homeowners voted 345 to 200 to accept the government buyout.
Most residents took the buyout offer and moved to nearby communities; just a few remained despite government warnings.
By 1991, the government abandoned all efforts to extinguish the fire.
In 1992, Pennsylvania condemned all the buildings within the borough.
In 2002, the U.
S.
Postal Service revoked Centralia's zip code, 17927.
In 1997 the population of Centralia was 44 people; today it is fewer than a dozen.
The fire continues to burn.
Estimates are that the area contains enough coal to fuel the fire for another 200 years, although it may burn itself out in only 125 years.
The main road now bypasses the town.
Curiosity-seekers visit the area despite warning signs.
Some former residents still visit the town's three cemeteries.
Many former residents are expected to attend ceremonies when a time capsule, buried in 1966, is scheduled to be opened in 2016.
Otherwise, however, the town's future remains in limbo.