In May 1962, the city council proposed cleaning up the local landfill in time for Centralia’s Memorial Day festivities. “This might seem like irrelevant, small-town history except for one thing,” wrote David Dekok in Fire Underground, his history of the fire: “Centralia Council’s method for cleaning up a dump was to set it on fire.” Though competing theories exist about how the fire was sparked, it’s thought that the Centralia dump fire sparked a much larger mine fire beneath the town.

Soon, a fire was raging in a coal seam beneath Centralia. It spread to mine tunnels beneath town streets, and the local mines closed due to unsafe carbon monoxide levels. Multiple attempts were made to excavate and put out the fire, but all of them failed. The reason, ironically, is the aftermath of the mining that defined Centralia for all of those years. There are so many abandoned mine tunnels in the area that one, many or all could be fueling the fire—and it would be prohibitively expensive and likely impossible to figure out which ones stoke the fire and to close off every single one of them.

As the years went on, the ground beneath the city itself became hotter and hotter, reaching over 900 degrees Fahrenheit in some locations. Smoke poured from sinkholes and gas filled basements. Residents started to report health problems and homes began to tilt. “Even the dead cannot rest in peace,” wrote Greg Walter for People in 1981. “Graves in the town’s two cemeteries are believed to have dropped into the abyss of fire that rages below them.” Earlier that year, a 12-year-old boy fell into a sudden sinkhole created by the fire, barely escaping death.

By then, it was too late for Centralia. Rather than put out the fire, Congress decided to buy out its residents, paying them to move. Then, in 1992, Pennsylvania moved to kick the holdouts out for good. All of Centralia’s buildings were condemned; its ZIP code was eliminated. Seven residents remained via court order; they are forbidden from passing down their property or selling it.

Today, Centralia still burns as one of 38 known active mining fires in the Pennsylvania.According to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, the fire could burn for another century if left uncontrolled. Modern-day Centralia is known as much for the blaze—and the graffiti that covers its abandoned highway—as for the mining that once sustained it. And forget extinguishing the fire that has turned the town from a small mining center to a place infamous for its hidden blaze: As geologist Steve Jones told Smithsonian’s Kevin Krajick, “Putting it out is the impossible dream.”