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Remaining holdouts in burning town reach settlement; Tale of Centralia, Pa. noted in film and fiction

November 9, 2013

Strange HighwaysA handful of residents who have refused to leave Centralia, the central Pennsylvania town that has literally been burning for decades, will be allowed to remain in their homes until their respective deaths, according to a settlement reached in a civil case between the homeowners and state officials.

Throughout the years, the story of Centralia trickled into popular culture, with the town, in which smoke can still be seen rising from the asphalt, reportedly serving as the inspiration for the film adaptation of the video game Silent Hill.
Horror and suspense author Dean Koontz also has said that Centralia’s tale was the inspiration forStrange Highways, the title piece of a short-story collection of the same name that Koontz released in the mid-1990s.
A professional biography says that Koontz is a Pennsylvania native who previously worked as an English teacher in a suburban Harrisburg school district.

Read the full article @ The Pennsylvania Record.