WEBVTT - From the Vault: Fire From the Rocks, Part 3 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.120 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:10.240 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:12.840 And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time to go 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:14.640 into the vault for an older episode of the show. 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.680 We are continuing the re air of our series Fire 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.800 from the Rocks, originally published in April and May of 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:23.920 twenty twenty two. This is part three and this episode 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:26.960 came out on May fifth, twenty twenty two. 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:39.120 Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:42.960 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:45.960 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:48.920 today we're back with part three of our series on 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:53.800 naturally fueled flames and the smolderings and burnings that come 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.600 from the earth itself or from the rocks. So in 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.800 the last episode of the series, we talked talked about 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:05.080 the Burning Mountain or Mount WinGen in Australia done in 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:09.800 New South Wales, which is an example of a naturally 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:13.000 fueled type of fire called a coal seam fire, a 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:17.960 place where coal formations underground are set on fire and 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.319 then continue to burn as long as they can, as 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.720 long as they have access to oxygen, probably and while 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.240 there's no way to know for sure, Mount WinGen has 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:32.200 been proposed as potentially the longest burning fire on earth. Though. 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.039 It's interesting because today, as we discussed last time, there's 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:38.720 no fire that you can see at the surface. There's 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:43.520 only this large patch of bleached and baked soil which 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:46.640 can be hot to the touch, and or at least 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:49.200 parts of it can, and it's a devoid of plant 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.440 life within this patch. And then of course all around 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.400 it there are these interesting sort of there's like a 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:57.280 war for survival at the border of this burned region, 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.680 so you'll see, like you know, grasses trying to survive, 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:04.360 and then these bleach tree trunks that are long dead 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.640 but still standing. And then also around this area you 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.880 find these deep cracks or crevices in the earth, out 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.760 of which poor smoke and sulfurous fumes. So the fire 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.280 is burning, but it's burning in the deep. It's burning 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:21.400 out of sight down inside the mountain, fed by oxygen 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:26.000 from the surface. And nobody knows how the fire inside 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.600 Mount Engine got started, but it's presumed to be a 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.640 result of some form of natural ignition. Maybe the coal 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:37.280 at the surface underwent a chemical reaction leading to spontaneous 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:42.480 combustion or autoignition as it's called, or maybe it was 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.200 struck by lightning or by brush fire, but we don't 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.160 really know. However, there are many other coal seam fires 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:54.280 that have mostly in one way or another, been created 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:58.360 by human behavior, and a big example here is coal 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:02.600 mine fires, my fires that fires in a coal seam 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:07.359 that get started one way or another because of mining there, 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.240 and they are actually a number of these that are 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:11.520 that are still burning throughout the world today. 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.239 I'm trying to remember if I know any coal mining 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:18.320 songs about coal mine fires. There's some really good, like 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.840 mining town folk songs and whatnot, but I can't remember 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:23.280 any offhand that mentioned fires. 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:25.880 The real good coal mining folk songs I know were 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:26.920 like union songs. 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:30.480 Yeah, same yeah, high Sheriff of hazard and so forth. 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:31.560 Which side are you on? 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:33.839 Yeah yeah, yeah, that's that sort of thing. 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:35.880 Well, yeah, those are great songs, but I don't know 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.160 of any of them that mention a coal seam fire. However, 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:42.040 I did actually find a poem that mentions a coal 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.920 seam fire, and not just any coal seam fire, but 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.320 the one that I was specifically about to talk about. 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:51.480 Because so there's a very famous example in the United 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.320 States of a coal seam fire that's been burning for 0:03:54.360 --> 0:04:00.160 decades and it is situated underneath the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:03.440 The poem I found was one by a poet named 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:07.560 Leonard Cress called the Centralia Mine Fire, and I thought 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.240 it was really pretty great. It talks about the town 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:15.560 being the shrine of the Holy Order of Anthracite, and 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.480 the last four lines of the poem read, though odors 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.800 of bottom damp and methane no longer reek into the 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:26.680 streets and ignite, the underground tunnels burn, and each vein 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:30.040 of coal potential fuse leads to another domain. 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:34.560 Oh nice. This is a contemporary poet by the way. Yeah, 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:37.000 they have a website Leonardcress dot com. 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.720 So the town of Centralia is in eastern Pennsylvania. It 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.920 was settled in the mid eighteen hundreds and being situated 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:46.719 over a large coal formation, I think for most of 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.560 its history it was a town where the local economy 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:52.279 was based around a coal mine, which would not be 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:56.280 uncommon in places like Pennsylvania or West Virginia, places in 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:59.599 the US where there's a lot of coal and settlements 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.919 can grow up around the extraction industry based on that coal. 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:06.640 It was never a huge city. I think in the 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.040 early nineteen sixties the town had some a little over 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:14.120 two thousand residents, I believe, But things started changing in 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:18.680 the year nineteen sixty two when part of the coal 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.880 seam that formed the town's industrial base caught fire. Now 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:27.080 there's still apparently disagreement about exactly how it caught fire. 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:31.040 One idea I read is that it happened to because 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.440 of a pre existing coal seam fire from a neighboring 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.320 region that spread slowly over several decades until it made 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.640 contact with the Centralia sem and then just burned on 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:45.080 from there. But I think that's a minority position. The 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:49.600 more commonly cited explanations involve a garbage stump, and so 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:54.200 the idea is that the coal caught fire either when 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.480 a scheduled trash burn at a local landfill penetrated the 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:02.480 mine tunnels and managed to ignite the coal, or possibly 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:06.080 when some kind of hot ash or coal was dumped 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:09.839 directly into the pit and set the coal burning. Either way, 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:11.600 it's a good example to think about how if you've 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:16.080 got open deposits of coal that are exposed to the atmosphere, 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:18.440 you really don't want to be burning stuff near that. 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.840 Yeah yeah, trying to imagine the sort of the apocalyptic 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:27.240 scenario where your garbage fires meet your coal mine tunnels. 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.400 Yeah yeah. And so apparently the locals knew there was 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.479 a fire in the mines beginning in nineteen sixty two, 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.440 but didn't quite realize what a problem it was until 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:40.039 years later, around the late seventies and early eighties. And 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:42.880 there were a few touch points here. One story from 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.120 nineteen seventy nine that I've seen in multiple sources is 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:50.680 that there was a local gas station owner named John Coddington, 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.800 who was also the mayor of the town, who one 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.640 day went out to check the levels in his underground 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:58.520 storage tank. So when you go to a gas station, 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.680 you know, you get out the pump the gases being 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.400 pumped up from these big tanks under the ground that's 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.120 where the gas lives. And something seemed off, I guess 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:08.960 when he was checking the levels in the tanks. So 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.440 he ended up checking the temperature in the storage tanks 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:14.720 and found that the gasoline was one hundred and seventy 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:19.760 two degrees fahrenheit. Whoa, yeah, yikes, And this did make 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.440 me wonder I was like, wait, what is the autoignition 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:26.160 temperature of gasoline? Because I might have guessed that if 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.720 you heat gasoline up to one seventy two degrees fahrenheit 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:31.520 in the presence of oxygen, that would be close to 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:35.520 it automatically igniting on its own. But I checked, and no, 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.239 my intuition was way off. I see some pretty different numbers, 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:41.600 but they're all much higher than this. A website called 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:46.320 engineering toolbox dot com suggests that the autoignition temperature of 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:48.240 gasoline is more like four to seventy five to five 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.120 thirty six degrees fahrenheit or two forty six to two 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:55.000 eighty celsius. So it wasn't gonna catch fire on its own, 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:56.040 but that's still freaky. 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.760 Yeah, And quick disclaimer out there, please do not try 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:00.960 and eat up gasolene. 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.720 Oh no, don't test out these numbers. Yeah, this is 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.360 not an experiment to perform in your kitchen. In fact, 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:12.000 just don't ever take gasoline inside your house. Yeah. But 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:14.520 so that was seventy nine. But then a real turning 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.560 point seemed to come in nineteen eighty one, when a 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:21.640 local boy who was twelve years old was nearly swallowed 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.240 up and killed. He managed to survive, but he was 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:28.720 nearly swallowed by the sudden collapse of a sinkhole created 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.720 by the Coalseum fire. And so for a contemporary report 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:36.360 on this, I found an AP article published on February twentieth, 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:42.120 nineteen eighty one called Pennsylvania Fearful fire rages for nineteen years. 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:44.880 This is a good This is a I mean, it's 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:47.280 a serious story, don't get me wrong. But also the 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:50.760 writing in this little news piece is it really drives 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:51.439 home the dread. 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:56.240 Oh yeah, yeah. So it starts off talking about opinions 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.960 of locals about you know, being exposed to the fumes 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:00.840 coming out of this mine and stuff. And maybe I 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:02.240 can come back to that in a minute, but first 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:04.880 I want to tell the story of this what happened 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.200 to this twelve year old boy. So the article reads quote, 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:12.280 townspeople said an accident Saturdays heightened their fears, leading to 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:17.240 a new flurry of government interest. Todd Domboski, twelve, was 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.760 playing in his grandmother's backyard a few houses from his home. 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.880 When he went to investigate a tiny whiff of smoke. 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:28.880 The ground beneath him collapsed instantly. The youth was engulfed 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:33.200 in a hot stinking tangle of dirt and tree roots escaping. 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.560 When his older cousin pulled him out, Todd fell about 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:41.000 six feet before grabbing the roots. Florence Domboski, Todd's mother, 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.720 praised her fourteen year old nephew, Eric Wolfgang, who was 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.720 swift and strong enough to reach into the hole, grab 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.959 Todd's arm and pull him to safety. A temperature of 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:53.880 three hundred and fifty degrees was recorded in the hole. 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.679 Its depth was not known, and I did look it up. 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.920 More recent articles mentioned that the same coal was later 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:03.240 measured and it was one hundred and fifty feet deep 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:07.240 or about forty five meters, and choked with carbon monoxide throughout. 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:09.960 So if you can imagine this, you're just standing on 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:12.320 what you believe to be solid ground, and the ground 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:17.400 beneath you just collapses, It just opens up, and you're 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.199 grabbing at tree roots that are protruding from the dirt, 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:22.840 and you managed to get a hold of it, but 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:26.240 down below you is just a pit into nothingness with 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:29.120 fumes of hell coughing out. 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:35.120 Absolutely biblical. There's another great paragraph in this ap story 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.880 that reads, quote feeding on timbers, coal and gas in 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:43.280 a maze of abandoned anthracide tunnels that date back to 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:47.160 the eighteen eighties. The creeping inferno is believed to have 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.959 spread beneath forty acres despite repeated attempts to curb it. 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.720 Yeah, so this article, part of what it's reporting on 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.800 is attempts to put out the mind fire that have failed. 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.360 I think at the time this was written, already more 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:03.600 than three and a half million dollars had been spent 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:06.120 on trying to fight the fire, and to no avail. 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:08.520 It just didn't work. And so another thing this article 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.480 cites is quotes from local townspeople talking about their fears 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.559 about the mind fire, Like one says that it's kind 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:16.880 of scary going to sleep at night and not knowing 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:18.800 if you'll wake up in the morning because you've been 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.600 poisoned in your sleep by fumes from the mine. And 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.920 it quotes a local teacher named Bob Goadinsky who says, 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.840 we feel like rats in a laboratory. No one knows 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.000 what the effect of the carbon monoxide is going to 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.760 be in the future, the children, what will be the 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:34.720 effect on them. 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:37.720 All of this, I mean, all this sounds like something 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.800 you'd encounter in a horror movie, except it is real life. 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:44.960 It's a real life, horrible situation. Concern for the children, 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:50.520 the creeping darkness beneath the earth, eruptions preying on the innocent. 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:54.320 Yeah. Another quote it gives is from a resident named 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:58.120 Sally Sulik, who says, my nose burns, my eyes tear, 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.520 I'm like a zombie, feel like going to sleep all 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.200 the time. If they don't soon do something for us, 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.880 they'll drive us crazy. So in the years since, the 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:12.559 population of Centralia has been steeply declining. It basically I 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.160 think between nineteen eighty and two thousand it declined to 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:19.000 almost nothing as the residents moved away. The local homeowners 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:23.760 were offered buyouts from the government to relocate, and then 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:27.240 at some point the government essentially condemned all of the 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.880 property in town by way of imminent domain. There were 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.680 a few residents left who didn't want to leave, but 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:36.880 most of the recent articles I read mentioned only like 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:39.160 a handful of people still living in the area, fewer 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:42.559 than ten. And apparently nobody is going to be allowed 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:46.040 to move to the area, So it's just those people 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.520 there as long as they stay or until their deaths. 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:49.480 Wow. 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:51.800 Another thing that struck me about the story is. I 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.360 was reading an article in Atlas Obscura by a freelance 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.640 writer based out of Pennsylvania named Jim Cheney, who was 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:02.439 writing up the history the Centralia fire but also had 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:05.360 been there and taken a bunch of pictures on the scene, 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:07.479 and there was one that struck me as really interesting. 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.720 It was a picture of what the author says, or 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:16.040 the remains of Route sixty one, which is a section 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.320 of roadway a highway that's now abandoned since it was 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.400 re routed elsewhere. And if you look at the pictures, 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.600 you can see why. Right down the middle of the 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.559 road is a gigantic crack, again like in a bad 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:33.320 earthquake movie, and so the road is just sort of 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:37.120 split down the middle. And it actually reminded me a 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:40.360 bit of the cracks and crevices that had been forming 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:42.880 in Mount WinGen for the past six thousand years or 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.240 more when you look at the pictures of that. I 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:47.719 don't know the exact cause of every surface feature we're 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:49.319 looking at here, but if I had to guess, I 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:51.920 would say this is probably some kind of collapse caused 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:56.080 by the burning out that's going on underneath the surface, 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.160 just like we saw in these other cases or like 0:13:58.160 --> 0:13:59.320 would have caused the sinkhole. 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:05.199 Of course, sometimes the real life tragedy does inspire great art. 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:09.920 It's worth noting that the town of Centralia inspired the 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:15.520 fictional town of Valkanvania in the nineteen ninety one film 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:24.880 Nothing but Trouble, Really, dan Ackroid's weird horror comedy about 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:27.760 a bunch of sort of sort of. I guess you 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:33.320 would say Texas chainsaw massacre esque family residing above a 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:37.800 big coal mine fire. Quite a film. Quite a film. 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.600 Tri Star Pictures or whoever it is, should have a 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.800 standing cash prize for anybody who can manage to watch 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.480 that whole movie. 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:49.320 It has a lot of fun things in it. You've 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:51.120 got a wonderful digital underground performance. 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:52.640 I think you got to make it through a lot 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:53.880 of stuff before you get to that. 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:56.840 Dan Ackroyd is clearly having the time of his life 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:57.480 in this film. 0:14:57.880 --> 0:14:58.360 Yeah. 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:01.040 So if it's if it's, if you considered a film 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.800 for an audience of one an absolute success, I think 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:05.360 you know. 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.880 There's another interesting tidbit I came across that's related to 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:14.240 the Centralia coal mine, and it seems geologically interesting, But 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:16.400 I couldn't tell if it was because of the fire 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:19.480 in particular. So there was a news report I read 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:24.360 on the site for a new station called WNEP sixteen. 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.760 I guess that's an ABC affiliate, and this was out 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:32.720 of Butler Township, Pennsylvania, and it's talking about a geyser 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.640 in Pennsylvania. That's not something that you would expect to 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:37.760 find in Pennsylvania. 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:42.520 I'm looking at the footage here, though it looks geysery, but. 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.120 This is not a natural geyser. This is a geyser 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.600 that was created when many years ago, the mining company 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.680 I guess that ran the Centralia mine drilled a hole 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.480 in the ground connecting to one of the tunnels for 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:58.960 ventilation of the mine shafts, and somehow now with the 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.760 tunnels partially flooded. I think it's especially when there's like 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:05.520 been heavy rain or when the snow melts in the spring, 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:10.040 you get suddenly a guyser gushing up out of this 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:12.880 ventilation hole. And it looks like a real guyser. It's 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.160 just spraying up into the air and then running off 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.360 into a nearby creek. And they say that the guyser 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.160 has a distinct smell. It smells like eggs which I 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:26.160 guess is an indication of sulfurous compounds, and that would 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:28.120 again make sense since you know, you got the coal 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.560 down there and it's on fire. And I was unable 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.160 to tell if this, guys, is actually related to the 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.840 fire or if it's just an unrelated, weird feature of 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:37.760 this same mine. 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.520 You see, Like there's a quote in the tweet that's 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:46.520 attached where the reporters saying that it's been there as 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:49.760 long as quote anyone can remember. There's a mention of 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:51.440 like some people say, oh, there used to be a 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:53.640 second one, and it is kind of I mean, all 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.520 of this is a stark reminder of how an enterprise 0:16:56.680 --> 0:17:00.720 like coal mining, how you're you're changing the earth, you know, 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:02.760 at least on a local level, and of course you 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:07.240 can get into larger issues of actual climate change as well, 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:09.399 but even just on a local level, like you're just 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:15.960 you're vastly altering how the ground beneath your feet is functioning. 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:27.080 Yeah, all right, let's move on to another fire in 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:27.520 the earth. 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:29.960 This is a fun one. I'm excited to talk about 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.040 it because it concerns natural fires that may have been 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.200 burning for two and a half millennia, as well as 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:41.359 a mythical monster, and that monster is the Chimera. Oh 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:44.840 and the chimera, of course. I think most folks out 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.359 there will have some image of this in their mind. 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.800 There are some wonderful depictions of it. There's the Chimera 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:56.040 of Arezzo. It's an Etruscan bronze statue of four hundred 0:17:56.040 --> 0:18:00.000 BCE that's absolutely gorgeous. If anyone has seen this, or 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:01.200 seen or reproduction of this. 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:04.560 I've been to a retzo, but I don't think I've 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:04.959 seen this. 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.440 Well, I'm not sure. I didn't put in my notes 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.600 where it is currently how so I don't know where 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.840 its current status is. But I've seen plenty of images 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:14.080 of it. 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:14.240 You know. 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:18.680 It's this wonderful, uh you know, dark bronze finish, and 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.879 it looks impressive for a creature that is not always 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:27.040 impressive in artistic renditions, because it is it is not 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:29.360 only a chimera. It is the chimera. It is this. 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.399 It is this, this hybrid form that some have criticized 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.119 for not completely making all that much sense and maybe 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.920 being too counterintuitive. So at the heart of things, the 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:46.359 chimera is, of course a goat monster. Most of its 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:48.920 recognizable body is usually that of a goat. I guess 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.240 one of the interesting things about the camera of Arezzo 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.160 is that less of it is a goat, and maybe 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:57.399 that's why it's more impressive, Like it looks like the 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:01.919 artists decided to lean more into the into the lion 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.719 aspects of its body. But generally when you hear talk 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.879 about yeah, we're talking about something that is in large 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.639 part a monstrous she goat. It roams the myths of 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:17.879 ancient Greece and Rome, and the name itself means she goat, 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.919 and in all depictions it has at least some goat 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:22.560 properties to its hybrid form. 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.160 Hm, that's funny. I certainly believe you that that's true. 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.720 But I do not really associate the camera with a 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:32.240 goat at all. I think, like, yeah, like lion, snake, 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:33.280 eagle or something. 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:36.960 Yes, some depictions it has wings. I want to say that. 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:39.439 In the Dungeons and Dragon's Monster Manual they give it 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:45.400 wings specifically. Now, the oldest records of the monster can 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:49.560 be found in the sixth book of Homer's Iliad, and 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.399 this is you know, written down at some point in 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.479 the eighth century BCE, and the beast here is described 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:58.080 as a great fire breathing, she goat with a lion's 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.520 head and the tail of a serpent. And then slightly 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:05.280 more recently, Hesiod wrote of the chimera in his book Theogeny, 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:12.600 composed between seven thirty and seven hundred DCE. So in Theogeny, 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:18.560 Hesiod is discussing the monstrous Echidna quote divine, stubborn hearted Echidna, 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:22.480 half nymph with dark eyes and fair cheeks, and half 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:26.719 on the other hand, a serpent, huge and terrible and vast, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:32.719 speckled and flesh devouring beneath caves of sacred earth. And 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:37.680 there in the depths, Echidna mates with the deadly giant Typhon, 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:43.320 and they produce quote, fierce hearted children monsters, all including 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:47.879 the two headed dog Orthos, the three headed dog Cerebus, 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:53.080 and then the even more headed lenaean Hydra, as well 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:56.879 as the sphinx, the Nemian lion, and of course the chimera. 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:00.280 And here's what Hesiod had to say about the kr 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:03.680 And these are these are all translations from the Reverend J. 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:10.840 Banks translation. Quote. But she Echidna bore chimera, breathing, restless fire, 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:15.199 fierce and huge, fleet footed, as well as strong. This 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:19.600 monster had three heads, one indeed of a grim visaged lion, 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:22.480 one of a goat, and another of a serpent, a 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:26.440 fierce dragon in front a lion, a dragon behind, and 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.720 in the midst a goat breathing forth the dread strength 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:31.879 of burning. 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.159 Fire, and in the midst a goat. 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:38.560 So like, mostly a goat, that's what you're saying, mostly, 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:40.000 that's what That's what I take it. 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.720 To me, is that he's saying the middle head is 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:45.520 the goat head, I think, or wait, but it's also 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:49.760 saying in front a lion and a dragon behind. Yeah, 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:52.120 So I'm trying to picture this. I'm having it, and I. 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:53.840 Think this is This is why you have a lot 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:57.199 of variation in how it's depicted, like that the the 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.879 Etruscan statue, for instance, and other depictions will have the 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.240 oa head just straight up growing out of the back 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.560 of the creature other times, but it's a good head. 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:08.280 And the goat always looks a little awkward there, like, 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:11.560 what what are you even doing there, buddy? Like you 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:14.160 can imagine the creatures moving around the goast just sort 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:17.480 of awkwardly making a play for vegetation and stuffed. 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:19.800 In Nibylon, you see a ripple in the water. The 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.200 Jaws theme plays, but it's a goat's head poking out 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:26.360 over the certain bah. Yeah wait, dude, the goats baar. 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:27.720 They don't really they bleat. 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:31.880 Yeah, the bleeding. So yeah, you see. Then you see 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:33.880 it depicted other ways where all the heads are sort 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:38.240