Don Bragg and Ellery Hatfield died in a fire that started on a conveyor belt at the Alma No. 1 mine in Logan County, West Virginia, January 19. Their deaths came nearly three weeks after 12 men perished in the Sago mine disaster in West Virginia.

A total of 45 U.S. coal miners have been killed on the job so far this year, already the deadliest annual toll since 1995. Two more coal miners died in separate incidents in Kentucky and Arizona over the November 4-5 weekend.

The report by the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety, and Training was released November 3. Its findings indicate that Bragg and Hatfield would be alive today had Massey, the biggest coal producer in West Virginia, followed the most basic safety practices.

The report states that the cause of the fire at Alma No. 1 was bad alignment in the drive and storage area of a conveyor belt, causing friction and then the fire. On Dec. 23, 2005, there had also been a fire in the storage unit.

Carl White, who worked day shift on this belt, testified in the investigation that on January 19 it kept shutting down and "he could see a hazy mist around the drive and storage unit [of the belt] but could not find any problems," according to the report. He informed his supervisor.

The fire broke out on second shift. Miners tried unsuccessfully to put it out with fire extinguishers. They grabbed the fire hose but it did not fit the water valve. A fire boss then opened the water valve to flood the fire, but the water had been turned off. The water to the automatic sprinkler system had also been turned off. Another miner had previously reported to the company that the fire hose and valve couplings did not match.

Bragg and Hatfield were working on a production crew in the No. 2 section, which was deeper in the mine. There was no smoke alarm in their work area and at the spot where the fire actually started, the alarm battery was disconnected. The fire burned for 40 minutes before the No. 2 section crew received warning that something was wrong, and only then because a dispatcher outside the mine turned off the beltline, alerting them. The phone to their section did not work.

The No. 2 section crew got into a mine vehicle and started driving out on an established escapeway, but hit such thick smoke they could no longer see. They had to get out proceed by foot in total darkness, feeling their way along the mine’s walls for hundreds of feet. When they reached clean air and could do a headcount, Bragg and Hatfield were no longer with them. Rescue crews found their bodies two days later.

The escapeway filled with smoke because the company had removed at least one wall, so the mine’s airflow was reversed, blowing smoke from the belt into the workers’ path. It used to be illegal to run fresh air into the mine along the belt line, but in recent years federal rules were changed to allow this. Companies use the belt tunnel as an air intake to save on costs.

The state report charges 16 Alma No. 1 employees, most of them bosses, with violating safety rules. A criminal investigation is proceeding simultaneously because data in the mine computer was erased sometime before March 2.

"Everywhere you turn in this report, there is another safety procedure that was supposed to be followed that wasn't or safety equipment that was supposed to be in place that either wasn't there or didn't work," said Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America. The Alma No. 1 mine is nonunion. Only 3 percent of Massey’s 5,700 employees are in a union.

The state report makes clear that production for Massey outweighed any safety considerations. Carl White told state investigators that on December 29, when a fire broke out on a different belt, he fought the fire without turning off the belt. "I have been taught—you know, maybe it's wrong—don't turn the belts off, you know. Keep your belts running the week of production."  
 
 
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