An underground coal fire that has been burning for more than 40 years in northeastern Pennsylvania has become the topic of a Penn State student's research.

Melissa Nolter (junior-psychology), an honors student at the Schuylkill Campus, decided to do a project on the underground fire in Centralia in order to make her geoscience class count as an honors course. Her instructor, Daniel Vice, helped her with much of her research.

The fire started in May of 1962, when the town burned a garbage dump and consequently set the coal vein beneath it on fire. Later that year the mine was closed due to the presence of carbon monoxide.

The fire split into four fronts, two of which are still burning today: one westward through Centralia, and one southwestward through Byrnesville. Nolter said the anthracite coal found in these mines is notoriously hard to ignite, but the fire "conditions" the coal around it and can therefore spread more quickly.

"The heat gets ahead of the flame and drives the water out of the coal, making it easier to ignite," she said.

Authorities have tried several times to extinguish the fire using barriers and trenches, but they have been unsuccessful in all attempts, she said. "They realized it was beyond their control so they started relocating people."

The relocation process began in the late 1970s and early 1980s after the ground collapsed under a young boy, who survived the incident by holding on to a tree root to keep from falling into the fire.

"If he had been five feet away he would have been killed," Nolter said.

After the incident, the fire began receiving much more media attention and the government took action, buying out and evacuating many of the landowners in Centralia. While most of the residents complied, several refused to leave. Fewer than 10 people remain in their homes in Centralia today, she said.

"I don't know how they put up with it," she said. "There are lots of subsidences [incidences of the ground suddenly caving in] and gases, and there are no animals there. There's just an eerie silence."

Steve Jones, chief of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)'s Division of Mine Hazards, said he has facilitated the relocation effort since he took his position with the DEP in 1979.

"The decision was made in the early 1980s to move people out of harm's way," he said.

He said this decision was made for financial reasons because a 1983 study by the federal government showed that it would cost about $660 million to extinguish the fire. Instead, the authorities opted to have Congress appropriate about $42.5 million to relocate the entire community within the fire impact zone, which included the borough of Centralia, the town of Byrnesville, and scattered residences outside these two areas.

"Most of the folks [who are] still there are in denial," he said, referring to the few who have refused to leave their homes. "They deny that there is any danger despite the fact that there have been numerous large subsidences and gas problems."

Nolter said another reason the fire has not been put out is the inexperience of community leaders in dealing with the state bureaucracy.

"There were financial disputes because [the community] couldn't afford it," she said. "They started and stopped projects. They didn't think it was going to get as big as it did."

She said her research with Vice showed that the fire has advanced an average of 66 to 75 feet a year, but its movement is still very unpredictable.

"It could move ahead a lot today or this week, but then stop for a month or two if it hits a barrier of coal, which makes it burn slower," she said.

Nolter said she took temperature readings all around the area using an instrument called a pyrometer because the thermometer she originally started using turned black from the high temperatures (about 710 degrees Fahrenheit). She and Vice were able to determine the location of the fire front using the temperature readings and also by seeing where the snow was melting.

Vice, an instructor of geosciences, said he used geological instruments and literature, such as maps and previous research on the Centralia fire. He also said he had dealt with coal fires years ago in western Washington and his experience with geothermal exploration helped him in the Centralia research.

He said he does not think the authorities will make any further efforts to extinguish the fire.

"At this point they are basically content to let it burn and just move people out," he said. "It is cheaper to do that than to dig up the fire."

Jones said there is not much else that can be done.

"The plan is to let it burn because the cost of extinguishing it is astronomical," he said. "Everybody recognizes that having a large mine fire burning is not a good thing, but it's a problem that is going to sit there for a long time, perhaps another 250 years."

Nolter said the future of Centralia looks bleak.

"They are not going to be able to rebuild the community, even if they put the fire out," she said. "It will become a ghost town."

Nolter presented her paper at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Feb. 14 in Denver.