You may have already heard the story of Centralia, PA, a coal mining town that had some 1,000 inhabitants at its peak. Now, that population is down to 9. It's become a ghost town for one of the most bizarre reasons imaginable--a fire started in 1962 to burn trash in a dump inadvertently spread to a coal seam underground and has simply never stopped burning.
The most recent report, published Dec. 1st in the Bismarck Tribune, confirms that the fire continues to this day--it's lasted an incredible 47 years so far.