SHENANDOAH’S CENTRALIA MOMENT: A look back at the Kehley Run mine fire (Part 3)

SHENANDOAH – When mine fires come up, the six-decade plight of a Columbia County borough is often top-of-mind, as is the misconception driven by said plight that mine fires are an unstoppable force.

As the Centralia Mine Fire saga began, a lesser-known mine fire was raging and threatening what was at the time one of Schuylkill County’s largest communities and economic hubs, yards away from a grocery store and the town’s Little League ballfield.

The sounds of mining equipment digging, blasting, and removing the side of Locust Mountain were as common as the sulfuric fumes of Anthracite coal aflame as scaffolding secured the side of a main regional thoroughfare.

This is part three of our look back at “The Big Dig,” or “Operation Scarlift,” that many of our region’s older residents remember. This is the story of the Kehley Run Mine Fire in the extreme northeast of Shenandoah.

Squabble, Squabble, Squabble

For about a decade, what seemed like miles of bureaucratic red tape and an endless game of hot potato between federal and state officials delayed any effective solution.

Sounds familiar.

Shenandoah Evening Herald articles regularly covered the fire and its editorials demanded action while representatives from the state as well as the Federal Bureau of Mines discussed what to do, or delayed taking action.

“Difficult to comprehend is the lethargy on the part of the State Department of Mines in tackling the slow-burning fire in the slope of the old Kehley Run mine at the northern edge of town,” the Herald wrote in a July 9, 1958 editorial. “The noxious sulphur fumes are a continuing irritation to residents in the area adjacent to the blaze. And we might add the State’s inactivity to date is decidedly irritating to the people of this Borough.”

Shenandoah Borough Council was briefed on the next plan to quell the fire in Sept. 1958. The Federal Bureau of Mines planned to grade the site and cover it with a five-foot layer of clay, effectively smothering the fire.

“After repeated delays,” the Herald reported, bids for the project were opened in March of 1959, though the federal government rejected the lowest bid for “technical reasons.”

“It’s a shameful example of plain buck-passing,” Councilman Charles Valetske told the Herald on April 11, 1959.

Meanwhile, fumes continued to choke nearby residents. Chief Burgess Adam Balkiewicz worried about carbon monoxide, known in the mines as “White Damp.”

On April 13, 1959, the feds told the Herald that the project had been awarded to Huss Contracting, of Ringtown, and, by July, the project was three-quarters of the way completed.

Sulphur fumes continued to rise through the clay cover, though the Commonwealth Bureau of Mines reported in Sept. of 1960 that the fire wasn’t spreading.

However, Balkiewicz told council in November of the same year that the fire had “crept out from under the clay covering.”

West Mahanoy Township Supervisors demanded a state inspection of the fire site in February of 1962, after “evidence of an outbreak of fire” was brought to their attention.

A month later, the township filed a formal complaint with the state as they’d found “evidence of deadly mine gases” at the site.

Fumes were seen “rising from an outside toilet north of the Little League Park as well as from six other crevices in the vicinity,” the Herald reported on April 18, 1962.

The federal government claimed in May that year that they found “no imminent danger from escaping fumes, nor indication that the fire is spreading rapidly.”

“The engineers noted that underground passages permit the fumes to escape at various points, some a considerable distance from the actual fire, which could give the impression that the fire is spreading rapidly,” the Herald reported on May 22, 1962.

By October, the fire encroached upon the Genetti Supermarket at Washington and Main Streets.

The clay cover, instead, caused the fire to spread farther to the east and west, the Herald reported on June 4, 1963.

A month prior, Tom Barrett suggested stripping the fire in a Herald column.

“The way you get rid of something you don’t want is to cut it out,” Barrett wrote in the May 7 edition. “Observers say the fire has spread substantially in the past year. It is a health hazard growing greater with the passing of each day.”

Shenandoah Council continued to ask for “definite action that will eliminate the health hazard and danger to lives and property.”

Local, state, and federal officials began meeting once again in December to seek another solution.

The next solution offered was, once again, to cover the site in clay, after removing a culm bank which the fire had spread to. Council was briefed on this idea in February of 1964, and Valetske said it would, once again, spread the fire, not extinguish it.

A test of that $228,960 ($2,199,179.32 today) project began that month.

The six-phase program called for covering the west end of the fire with clay, in the area of the little league field. Then, the state planned to cut off the fire on the eastern end by removing culm material and then they would cover that with clay. Step five involved drilling exploratory boreholes to find the west end of the blaze and keep it from spreading down towards Glover’s Hill. Finally, more boreholes would be drilled at the western end and flushed with incombustible material.

The plan, the state said when the first phase’s bid was awarded in June of 1964, would not extinguish the fire.

Workers began digging a 400-foot trench to isolate the culm bank fire and laying a clay blanket over the burning culm, which was finished by the end of the summer.

Again, the state and federal government’s refusal to take steps to truly eliminate the fire failed and fire escaped the clay covering by October.

“The flames are visible at night over the original clay covering, located just west of the present clay blanket that coers the culm bank at the mine site,” the Herald reported on Oct. 20, 1964.

“Valetske regarded the fire as a danger ‘to our entire community.’ He said ‘No one knows how far west the underground fire has travelled,'” the Herald added.

West Mahanoy Supervisors and Shenandoah Mayor Albert Matunis regarded the outbreak as a “state of emergency.”

The state took immediate action, placing a snow fence around the area and planning to extend the clay blanket over where the fire reached the surface.

The state then planned to apply for $250,000 in funds “to eliminate the entire problem.”

Up until then, $167,000 ($1,593,733.09 today) had been spent on the government’s futile efforts to battle the blaze.

The snow fence and clay blanket were in place by November 13, and, on November 20, more signs of the fire were seen. Borough Police led a survey of the area, finding new signs of fire in five places. Chief John P. Maher spotted smoke swirling through two cracks in the original clay covering as well as three areas north of the Little League field.

Over the next year, boreholes were drilled on White Street and in the area of the Girard Park to determine the blaze’s spread.

Despite all efforts, the fire remained uncontrolled by the beginning of 1966 and, yet again, in March, flames surfaced, the Herald reported.

A $2.5 Million ($22,690,902.14 today) grant was received from Appalachian Regional Commission in Sept. of 1966 to battle the blaze. The government, though, did not put a plan together, prompting another appeal from Shenandoah officials in December.

Mayor Matunis continued to lobby for assistance. State and federal officials indicated drilling more boreholes, which Matunis decried, asking them to instead remove the burning culm bank.

“No more bore holes are needed to learn about this fire. ‘It is there, and it is there the past nine years,'” the Herald reported, quoting Matunis.

The Shenandoah Rotary Club joined the appeal in January of 1967.

Red tape continued to delay any effort to extinguish the fire throughout the year. A fissure opened up near the Little League field in Sept. of 1967, creating a hazard in the area and indicating further fire spread.

Exploratory borehole drilling finally began in the summer of 1968. That August, state officials said it was one of the worst mine fires in the state.

More clay was added to the site in April of 1969 while no final plan had been set.

“The [U.S. Bureau of Mines] has worn out its welcome with its irritating delay on a plan to extinguish the Kehley Run mine fire,” the Herald wrote in a May 19, 1969 editorial.

READ PART FOUR: Finally, a final solution

About Author