The submitted title was "Zombie fires in northeastern Yakutia continue to burn at air temperature of -50C". We changed it to what the article says.

Submitters: please don't rewrite titles like that—this is in the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. (But if the article title itself changed, obviously that's different.)

I have a feeling the Siberian Times updated the headline. Normally I spot when the HN title differs from the headline of a news article, and i think I’d be especially observant with this unfamiliar "zombie fire" phrase. But I didn't notice anything amiss when I opened this one up originally.

So like the Centralia fire?

I think the Centralia fire is a great reference - or really any coal seam fire. The interesting thing to me is how this fire is continuing among blisteringly cold surface temperatures - but then again those fires have very little exposure to the surface and earth insulates extremely effectively. It only takes a few feet of earth to effectively dampen surface temperature changes - which is why ice houses were such a commonly used tool.