On July 30, ATF agents David Aguilera and Skinner visited the Branch Davidians' gun dealer Henry McMahon, who tried to get them to talk with Koresh on the phone. Thus, the group's members were fully armed and prepared; an intense gunfight erupted, resulting in the deaths of four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians.

After a jury trial lasting nearly two months, the jury acquitted four of the Branch Davidians on all charges. And according to Cal Fire, five of the top 20 largest fires in California's history have occurred in 2020. Increased air pressure induced by the heat from the mine fires has interacted with heavy rainfalls in the area that rush into the abandoned mines to form Pennsylvania's only geyser, the Big Mine Run Geyser, which erupts on private property in nearby Ashland. Clarence "Mooch" Kashner, the president of the Independent Miners, Breakermen, and Truckers union, came at the invitation of a council member to inspect the situation in Centralia. Nothing remains of the buildings today other than concrete foundation components, as the entire site was bulldozed two weeks after the end of the siege.Black rebellion, America on Fire powerfully illustrates, was born in response to poverty and exclusion, but most immediately in reaction to police violence. Centralia councilman Joseph Tighe proposed a different hypothesis: that Centralia's coal fire was actually started by an adjacent coal-seam fire that had been burning west of Centralia's.

Autopsies of the dead revealed that some women and children found beneath a fallen concrete wall of a storage room died of skull injuries. The CEVs used explosives to punch holes in the walls of buildings of the compound so they could pump in CS gas ("tear gas") and try to force the Branch Davidians out without harming them. In addition to the council minutes, Quigley cites "interviews with volunteer firemen, the former fire chief, borough officials, and several eyewitnesses" as her sources. The borough, by law, was responsible for installing a fire-resistant clay barrier between each layer of trash in the landfill, but fell behind schedule, leaving the barrier incomplete. As the siege wore on, two factions developed within the FBI, [41] one believing negotiation to be the answer, the other, force.

DeKok, David (1986), Unseen Danger; A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, p. His conversations, which were dense with Biblical imagery, alienated the federal negotiators, who treated the situation as a hostage crisis. Other reports claim the first shots were fired by the ATF "dog team" sent to kill the dogs in the Branch Davidian kennel. Renos Lenny Avraam (British national) – convicted of voluntary manslaughter and using a firearm during a crime.