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Mine Fire History
Visiting Centralia
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360 Virtual Tours
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Centralia Multimedia
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Memories of Centralia


Panoramic Virtual Tours:

Mine Fire Hot Spot
Downtown Centralia Mainstreet Centralia Damaged Hillside

 
 
   
Knoebels Amusement Park (only 15 miles from Centralia!) 
Ghost Towns
Area 51 - Groom Lake
Abandoned PA Turnpike
Defunct Amusement Parks
Abandoned Places

  

Photo Updates:


Centralia in HDR

July 2006 360? Virtual Tour of Downtown Centralia PA

Centralia's Neighbor:
Byrnesville, Pa

Zeisloft's Mobil
Gas Station

July 5th 2008
Centralia PA

Centralia PA 2008
January Photos and 
commentary by
Donald Davis


2006 Photos


2005 Photos
of Centralia


 

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2004 Photos
of Centralia


2003 photos

of Centralia

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2002 photos

of Centralia


360 Degree Virtual Tours of Centralia PA
 

Fire In The Hole
by Kristie Betts
A fictional story based on Centralia
 

The Little
Town That Was

by Donald Hollinger

 

RESIDENTS TO SAVE THE BOROUGH OF CENTRALIA - FACT SHEET #6 - MARCH 1984 - This "Fact Sheet" was transcribed from a photocopied, original March 1984 newsletter from a Centralia organization called "Residents To Save The Borough Of Centralia".  Read the News Letter here


130th Anniversary
of the 1877 Shamokin Uprising and the Great Railroad Strike .. Read More

 

Centralia Today
A Photo Documentary
of Centralia today.

 

Mine Emergency Response Program
Details from the
Saskatchewan
Mine Rescue Manual
 

















 

Centralia PA in Infrared
May 23rd 2008
by Donald Davis

Centralia is a town of beauty. The gentle rolling hills and foliage make for a very scenic place. However, as we all know, there is desolation in the town when one considers photographs from 30 years ago to those taken recently. So for my third trip, I decided to focus on the desolation and abandonment of the town. Black and white tends to be well suited for conveying such a mood. But I decided to further magnify the abandonment using the surrealistic appearance of black and white infrared photography.

B&W infrared is not the band of infrared that shows up as heat. Rather these frequencies of infrared are in the region of the spectrum just beyond red, specifically in the 700nm-1200nm range. Infrared films are available, but they are being discontinued. However digital cameras, with modification and some without, can record in the aforementioned near infrared spectrum. Digital camera sensors are highly sensitive to infrared and as such, an infrared blocking filter is employed. In modified cameras, the IR blocking filter is removed. The user then places a filter over the lens that blocks visible light but passes infrared. For unmodified cameras such as mine, the same filter used to pass IR while blocking visible light is also used. Only the exposures are set to a very long time such as 8 seconds at f/8 at ISO 100 in bright sun. This works because while the internal IR blocking filter does block enough IR at normal daylight exposures of, say, 1/60 sec, it leaks enough through in broad daylight to record IR when multiple second exposures are used. If a person has LCD preview available, then they can get a good idea of the exposure. Otherwise, it is trial and error when reviewing the images and changing exposures. The metering systems in cameras really do not have total accuracy for IR so it is pretty much guesswork. But digital IR is a blessing. For unmodified cameras, this absolutely requires a tripod. And with such long exposures, objects will be blurred in windy conditions. People and vehicles that pass into the frame during exposure are often times not even recorded due to the slow shutter. Lastly, infrared does not focus in the same plane as visible. For SLR camera lenses, there may be a red line on the lens barrel next to the main focus mark. That is where the lens must be refocused to in order to keep the IR image in decent focus. For digital compacts such as my PowerShot S70, the manual focus control is used to bring the distance closer to the camera slightly. Apertures f/8 or narrower tend to greatly reduce the difference in the focusing. Apochromatic lenses also keep the infrared plane of focus closer to the visible plane of focus.

Anyway, these are my black and white infrared images shot with my unmodified Canon Powershot S70. Working with black and white images does take a bit of patience as the contrast and tonality is really unique. This requires a bit of post-processing to get a good image without blowing out the highlights. And even then, it is not always possible. Certain sensors like the one in my S70 show a central hotspot from the aperture that may or may not be possible to correct. And if one shoots in RAW mode (as I did since the S70 supports RAW) or does not have a black and white setting, they will need to convert to black and white first when working with their images during post-processing. Anyway, I hope you find these images a unique variant of the many exceptional Centralia photographs on this site. And if one has any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at donald@neo.rr.com


Borehole along Apple St.


Eastern end of Odd Fellows Cemetery.


Driveway along North St between N Troutwine and N Paxton.

 

Location of the area where the sinkhole formed that nearly swallowed Todd Domboski in 1982. It is on the west side of Apple St just north of Wood St.



Municipal Bldg viewed from Laurel St.


Corner of Plum St and Main St looking north along Plum.


Abandoned stairs along Main St at the corner of Main and S Paxton.


Corner of Apple St and E Park St looking east


The burnt and subsided hillside off South St.


Northern end of closed section of Rt 61.


Corner of Troutwine St and W Center St looking south along Troutwine.


Corner of Apple St and Railroad Dr looking north.


Poplar St looking east from the corner of Plum and Poplar.

 

Location of the Former Coddington's Amoco station along S Locust as viewed from South St.


The burnt and subsided hillside off South St.


Abandoned basketball court.


Abandoned basketball court.


Corner of Laurel St and N Locust looking north along Locust.


Corner of Paxton St and Walnut St looking east on Walnut.


Location of former McDonnell Dairy at the corner of Railroad Dr and Apple St.


Subsided section of Rt 61 along fissure

 

Veterans Memorial along S Locust and W Park. The flag is present, but due to a 10 second exposure combined with a brisk wind, the flag is so highly blurred from movement as to not be visible in the image.


Corner of Troutwine St and W Center St looking east on W Center.


Corner of Apple St and Railroad Dr looking south.

 
 

For more in the Infrared
Check out Donald's 7 Part Video Tour of Centralia PA

Centralia PA Tour in Infrared
by Donald Davis

Also check out Donald's other Centralia videos on his YouTube.com page:
Youtube.com/donaldjr1969

Contact Donald Davis directly:

 
 
 
About Infrared  

 
Infrared (IR) radiation is electromagnetic radiation whose wavelength is longer than that of visible light, but shorter than that of terahertz radiation and microwaves. The name means "below red" (from the Latin infra, "below"), red being the color of visible light with the longest wavelength. Infrared radiation has wavelengths between about 750 nm and 1 mm, spanning three orders of magnitude. Humans at normal body temperature can radiate at a wavelength of 10 microns.

Infrared imaging is used extensively for both military and civilian purposes. Military applications include target acquisition, surveillance, night vision, homing and tracking. Non-military uses include thermal efficiency analysis, remote temperature sensing, short-ranged wireless communication, spectroscopy, and weather forecasting. Infrared astronomy uses sensor-equipped telescopes to penetrate dusty regions of space, such as molecular clouds; detect cool objects such as planets, and to view highly red-shifted objects from the early days of the universe.

In infrared photography, infrared filters are used to capture the near-infrared spectrum. Digital cameras often use infrared blockers. Cheaper digital cameras and camera phones have less effective filters and can "see" intense near-infrared, appearing as a bright purple-white color. This is especially pronounced when taking pictures of subjects near IR-bright areas (such as near a lamp), where the resulting infrared interference can wash out the image. There is also a technique called 'T-ray' imaging, which is imaging using far infrared or terahertz radiation. Lack of bright sources makes terahertz photography technically more challenging than most other infrared imaging techniques. Recently T-ray imaging has been of considerable interest due to a number of new developments such as terahertz time-domain spectroscopy.

  continued, follow this link...

 
  Mine Fire History Mine Fire History Historical Photos
  Pictures From Today Mine Fire Chronology Visiting Centralia
  Centralia Then & Now 360? Virtual Tours Scientific Study
  Satellite, Aerial Photos Downtown Panoramic Centralia Books

  

Other Interesting Things

 

 


 

So you want to Visit Centralia PA?  What you should know before you go to Centralia PA.

 

The Real Disaster Is Above Ground: A Mine Fire and Social Conflict

 


















 

What's near Centralia?

Plan your visit around one of Pennsylvania's best kept secrets located only 15 miles up the road from Centralia...


Knoebels
Amusement Park

Click Below for
 more details...

Knoebels
Amusement Park

 


Silent Hill & Centralia
Centralia PA inspires screenwriter Roger Avary during the making of the movie Silent Hill.
Read More Here...

 

Remembering ...
Byrnesville PA
By Mike Reilley

 
  Books about Centralia
  Maps of Centralia
  Around Town Today
  Local Attractions
 
  Personal Notes
  Additional Reading
  Haunted Centralia?
 
  Gerry McWilliams and
  the album "Centralia"
  
  Silent Hill Inspiration
  Other Mine Fires
  Search Centralia
  Centralia Sites/Books
  
Panoramic Virtual Tours:
Mine Fire Hot Spot
Downtown Centralia Mainstreet Centralia Damaged Hillside
  
 
  Centralia Infrared


Centralia PA in B&W Infrared
Infrared Photography
by Donald Davis

Video Tour
in Infrared of
Centralia PA
by Donald Davis

  

The Little Town That Was
by Donald Hollinger
 
  
Made in U.S.A. - 1987 movie that was filmed on location in Centralia PA See the opening Scene that started in Centralia during the peek of the mine fire disaster

 
 

 

Is Centralia Haunted?
Explore the possibility

 
The Real Disaster Is Above Ground: A Mine Fire and Social Conflict
 
  

Is there Hope
for Centralia?

Maybe...

Through the use of Nitrogen-Enhanced foam the Pinnacle mine fire was extinguished by Cummins Industries, Inc.  Cummins proposes to tackle the Centralia Mine fire and bring an end to the 
40 plus year fire.

Read this White Paper which evaluates the effectiveness of remotely applied nitrogen-enhanced foam to aid in efforts to isolate and suppress a mine fire.