Slow Burn: A Photodocument of Centralia, Pennsylvania

First published in 1986, Slow Burn chronicles Centralia s demise from an underground coal mine fire and depicts a singular epic event in Pennsylvania history, representing the confluence of environmental, scientific, bureaucratic, and emotional tragedies. As an award-winning photojournalist, Jacobs moved into a house in Centralia s impact zone in 1983 to document in photographs and interviews the end stages of the tiny anthracite coal town s unsuccessful fight to resolve the intractable problems that began with the mine fire in 1962 and culminated in the razing of the town by the federal government."