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New Straitsville Mine Fire

New Straitsville · Perry County · Southeast Ohio

A coal-strike fire that has burned underground since 1884

Ohio Historical Society markerBuckeye Trail: New Straitsville Section

Visiting information you can trust

Content last reviewed: September 2026 — this is when Field Notes Ohio's content was last checked, not a live status.
Primary official source: Official page
Location confidence: Verified entrance or visitor center
Robinson's Cave and museum site, OH-93, New Straitsville (mine-fire marker area)
Check current conditions: Official conditions or closures
Reservations or tickets: Tickets or admission info

Prices, hours, closures, campsite availability and trail conditions shown elsewhere on this page are not live — always confirm with the official source before you go.

A coal-country fire set during a miners' strike in 1884 that burned under southeast Ohio for generations and is said to be burning still.

Strike: The nine-month Hocking Valley Coal Strike began in June 1884
Fire: Started in the fall of 1884, by different accounts on October 11 or November 13, when unknown men pushed burning mine cars into six mines near New Straitsville
Why: In protest at being replaced by non-union workers, whom strikers called 'scabs'
Damage: Estimates of the coal burned range from 13 square miles to more than 200 square miles; by 1936 the fire had burned all the coal in a 36-square-mile area
Fight: The WPA built fire barriers in the 1930s, with nearly 350 workers in 1938
Still burning: Smoke rose again in the Wayne National Forest in 2003

The story

New Straitsville was founded in 1870 as a coal-mining town by the New Straitsville Mining Company, and by 1880 it had more than 4,000 people. In June 1884, coal miners in the Hocking Valley went on strike over wages, and the strike lasted nine months. Its organizer, the union leader Christopher Evans, met with miners in Robinson's Cave, and those meetings helped shape the national federation of miners that became the National Progressive Union. In the fall, after the company brought in replacement workers, unknown men soaked coal cars in oil, set them alight and pushed them into six mines around New Straitsville. The date is given as October 11 in the historical marker and November 13 in Ohio Memory.

The fire spread into the coal seam and could not be put out. Operators plugged fissures without success, the ground collapsed under houses and roads, and mine gases seeped into schools and homes. Families were evicted and homes demolished, and residents drew hot water from their wells. Flames rose 100 feet in the air and could be seen from five miles. Landowners advertised it as the 'World's Greatest Mine Fire,' Ripley's Believe It or Not broadcast about it, and thousands of tourists paid 25 cents to watch guides cook eggs over the fire holes. By 1936 the coal in a 36-square-mile area had burned, and in 1936 to 1938 the WPA put men to work building barriers of clay and water across the burning veins. The fire is still described as burning, and smoke came up from the Wayne National Forest again in 2003. The Buckeye Trail's New Straitsville Section passes through the area.

The Fire That Was Sold as a Sideshow

The miners set it as a protest, and it could never be put out. Within a few years the men who owned the land where it burned realized that people would pay to see it. Guides took tourists to the hot ground to fry eggs over the fire holes and brew coffee from a heated well, and for a quarter you could watch the hillside smoke.

Meanwhile the families whose houses were sinking into it were evicted. The coal seam ate more than a century of a region's living.

Behind the legend

The strike dates, the marker, the eviction and tourism history are from the 2011 marker text and the Southern Perry Network's history page. The area burned varies hugely by source: 13 square miles, 36 and 'more than two hundred' in Ohio Memory. Whether the fire still burns is stated flatly in some sources and complicated in others, including a report that federal crews bulldozed over some smoking spots.

If you go

Read the historical marker, visit Robinson's Cave and the local museum and walk the Buckeye Trail through the Wayne National Forest, but stay away from smoking ground.

Visiting

Status

Site is a marker and museum; the burn area is not a visitor attraction

Managed by

New Straitsville History Group and the Wayne National Forest

Hours

Robinson's Cave Museum and Dunkle Hall are local museums with limited hours; confirm with the village. The 2011 historical marker is on public land near New Straitsville.

Admission

See the museum.

Phone

See the village of New Straitsville

Please note

The burn area may be unsafe, with hot ground, collapse and gases, so do not go looking for the fire; view the marker and museum.

Address

New Straitsville, OH 43766 (Robinson's Cave Museum behind the fire department)

Official information →Directions Find trails nearby on AllTrails →

Hours and prices change. Confirm with the site before you go.