A native of Holland, Michigan, David DeKok graduated from Hope College in 1975 with a degree in Political Science and began working for the Shamokin (PA) News-Item. He started reporting on the Centralia mine fire after hearing about its effects while covering the November, 1976 Centralia Borough Council meeting. In 1979, DeKok received a first place award from the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers Association for his 1978 series of news articles about the mine fire; in 1980 he won a second place Herbert Bayard Swope Award for News Writing Excellence. The Associated Press Managing Editors of Pennsylvania honored him in May, 1981 for outstanding public service journalism. DeKok gathered the extensive information he had amassed concerning the mine fire into book form, and published Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government and the Centralia Mine Fire in 1986.

Incorporated in 1866, the coal-mining town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, was founded by Irish immigrants who were later joined by Russian and Ukrainian groups. Centralia enjoyed a long period of economic and communal security until the early 1930s when the market for anthracite coal declined. By the end of the 1950s, most of the mines were closed. The final shattering of the tightly bonded community began in May, 1962 when George Jones, trustee of the Odd Fellows Cemetery, discovered next to the cemetery grounds a fire burning in an abandoned mine pit that was being used as a municipal garbage dump. His discovery signaled an underground fire beginning to burn out of control. Deadly gases seeping from the fire forced the state to close all remaining mining operations in the Centralia area in August.

Several explanations were once offered as to how the fire began. The first is spontaneous combustion of the rubbish in the pit; a second is that hot ashes from a coal furnace were illegally dumped. Another reason relates to the one-hundred-year-old legend of the curse placed on Centralia by the parish priest who had sent warnings from the pulpit about the violence of the Molly Maguires. DeKok, in his book Unseen Danger, writes that the mine fire started accidentally as part of a municipal cleanup project that involved setting fire to the town dump in May 1962. His explanation, based on documents and interviews, has not been seriously challenged.

A number of attempts were made to stop the fire. Throughout 1962 and 1963 the government of Pennsylvania tried several times to extinguish the blaze, but each time ran out of funds and work was stopped. Although the federal government became involved in 1966, through the Appalachian Regional Development Act, progress in controlling the fire was slow and the danger continued to grow.

The critical turning point came on February 14, 1981 when twelve-year-old Todd Domboski sank into an opening in his grandmother’s yard as he investigated smoke rising from the ground. The open pit and the smoke came from the spreading underground mine fire. This event brought the hazardous effects of the Centralia Mine Fire to the public’s attention as news of Domboski’s fall made national and international headlines.

After years of divisive argument and futile efforts to save the community, Centralia finally split apart. In August, 1983 most of the people voted to relocate the community. Through a federally-funded program, eighty percent of the residents moved to housing developments such as Den-Mar Gardens in New Centralia, but some refused to leave their homes. They watched as their neighbors moved out and the demolition of abandoned buildings began.

Nearly a decade later, in early 1992, the Columbia County Redevelopment Authority offered to purchase the forty-four properties still intact in Centralia and relocate the sixty remaining residents to protect them from possible health dangers. The residents, however, did not wish to move. They contended that the state simply wanted to gain control of the wealth of minerals and coal that lies under the town, and began legal proceedings to block the county’s action. Governor Bob Casey invoked eminent domain on the properties in the borough but residents remained.

As of 2013, state and local officials reached an agreement with the seven remaining residents of Centralia that they could live in the borough for the rest of their lives. The fire, now threatening nearby communities, burns on.