Aracoma Alma: two men, a belt fire and an escapeway nobody knew

MELVILLE, W.Va. — Seventeen days after Sago, a conveyor belt caught fire at Aracoma Alma No. 1, a Massey Energy operation in Logan County. Smoke filled the primary escapeway. Ten miners got out. Two did not.

Don I. Bragg, 33, and Ellery 'Elvis' Hatfield, 47, separated from the others in the smoke and moved away from the route. Their bodies were found about a mile and a half in. Both died of carbon monoxide exposure.

The investigation focused on two failures that are entirely preventable and entirely a matter of training and maintenance. The escapeway had not been maintained to the standard the regulations require, which meant the route that was supposed to be clear of smoke was not. And the men did not know the alternate way out well enough to find it in dark and smoke.

Aracoma Coal Company later pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges connected to the deaths and paid a $2.5 million fine, one of the few criminal resolutions in a mine safety case before 2010.

Part 48 and Part 46 training both require escape and emergency procedures for every new miner and every annual refresher, and this is why. A miner who has walked the second way out with a light on, in a class, will find it in smoke. A miner who has only heard about it will not.

Belt fires remain one of the most common underground emergencies in coal. The controls are not exotic: belt monitoring, fire suppression, maintained escapeways, lifelines along the route, and drills that are actually run instead of signed.