I am amazed that there can be enough stuff down there to keep burning for that long.
I like their way around it tho, "nope, we won't just try harder and find a way to put it out, we will just revoke the zip code and abandon the entire town" because of course, the relocation of an entire place is easier than putting a fire out isn't it
I reckon even a small family of spiders could manage to put a fire out in 47 years lol
Fighting a fire which is massive and has huge fuel reserves, that also happens to be concealed underground is probrably a lot harder than it would seem.
Especially when you can't get to the base of it, maybe they should like, do a massive explosion on the area, after all, this is the only way Americans understand.
that would work theoretically, assuming that there is nobody left in the town at all, maybe a small nuke could be buried and then detonated from a safe distance, that should open things up fairly well i would guess!
The costs of putting it out probrably massively outweigh the benefits or the potential damage, or other options such as paying everyone out to leave.
Some Wikipedia surfing tells me that there is a coal seam fire in Germany which has bean burning since the 1600s, and there are coal seams which are been natrually combusting, such as Burning Mountain in Australia, which is thought to have been burning for roughly 6,000 years.
As for the fire in Centralia, they reckon theres at least another 250 years worth of fuel.