Pain, anger linger from Wilberg

Twenty years ago tonight, an air compressor fire that hardly would have drawn a cuss word above ground ignited a hell on earth in central Utah's Wilberg coal mine — a tragedy that became the worst coal-fire disaster in Utah history.

Twenty-seven miners died.

"Time has not dimmed the pain of losing my son, and it never will," says Sally Walls, whose son Lester Walls Jr., 23, died in the Wilberg Mine. "It's the most devastating thing that can ever happen to a parent. It's been 20 years, but the hurt is still there like it was yesterday. It seems like an eternity since I've seen and talked to my son."

There have been deadlier mine disasters in Utah. Notably, a devastating underground explosion in the Scofield Mine on May 1, 1900, killed 200 miners, but there was no fire involved in that tragedy.

At nearly a mile deep and literally encased in fuel, the Wilberg blaze, reported at 9:20 p.m., Dec. 19, 1984, quickly became so hot that the miners — trapped a half mile deeper — couldn't get out and their would-be rescuers couldn't get in. A long-burning wall of fire and dense smoke delayed recovery of the bodies and kept the remains of the last two miners cordoned off from their loved ones outside until Dec. 16, 1985, nearly a year later.

The fire that December night brought grief to coal-mining communities in Emery and Carbon counties and an outpouring of sympathy from coal mining towns across the country. The long interval between the accident and the recovery of bodies prolonged the agony for survivors. A monument dedicated at the end of 1985 memorialized the loss but didn't extinguish the anger in some of the loved ones left behind.

The 20th anniversary will be observed this afternoon and evening by the United Mine Workers of America and the community at large. UMWA President Cecil Roberts will attend from Washington, D.C., as will Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said Mike Dalpiaz, international vice president of UMWA District 22.

Most of the surviving family members have moved on with their lives and left the area, Dalpiaz said.

Walls would have gone back to her native Pennsylvania after the tragedy had it not been for her younger son's asthma condition. Her husband, Lester Sr., also a Wilberg Mine worker, died seven years ago, and her other three children are married and living in the area with their children, so it's unlikely she'll ever leave, although her son was buried on Nov. 9, 1985 — his 24th birthday — in his native Indiana, Penn.

"I wanted to move back East where I came from when this happened, but my youngest son has asthma, so we couldn't because of his health. That's why I didn't leave here, or I would have," she said.