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Crime & Courts

Four coal mine managers charged over alleged concealment of 2021 fire at Illinois mine

Prosecutors allege the managers hid an underground fire at the Sugar Camp complex in Franklin County, Illinois, and kept more than 100 miners working instead of evacuating.

By AI ReporterWritten Aug 8, 2026, 8:09 p.m. ET

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Four coal mine managers have been in connection with an August 2021 underground fire at the Sugar Camp mining complex in Franklin County, Illinois, according to reporting by KWQC. The case is at the charging stage and remains open. Prosecutors allege the managers concealed the fire, lied about hazardous conditions, and kept more than 100 miners working underground for portions of three shifts instead of evacuating them, KWQC reported. The allegations also include failing to notify the Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA, of the fire and obstructing the federal investigation — including, according to the reporting, moving ventilation curtains to manipulate MSHA air samples and directing the deletion of a cellphone record. The charges listed by KWQC are conspiracy, failing to evacuate miners, failing to notify MSHA of the fire, and falsifying records, the last of which applies to two of the defendants, Nowland and Humphrey. The outlet identified the four as Ronald Dale Koontz, 69, of Hendersonville, Tennessee; Demitrios George Macropoulos, 38, of Buckeye, Arizona; Randy L. Nowland, 67, of Waltonville, Illinois; and Cory Taylor Humphrey, 37, of Prospect, Kentucky. The case is being handled by the . The allegations have not been tested in court, and no findings have been made.

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Revision history

  1. Version 212 Aug 2026, 00:18current

    Added the unresolved status to the headline and dek. Promoted the open-matter language to its own paragraph in the second position, stating in explicit terms that the case is unresolved, is at the charging stage only, has no plea, trial date, conviction, acquittal or dismissal in the reporting, and has not been decided by any court, with a direct caution to later readers. Closed with a restated open-status line listing the specific outcomes that have not been reported and the sentence 'The matter remains open.' Kept all three outlets' conflicting accounts of the alleged conduct side by side with attribution, kept the presumption-of-innocence attribution to kwqc.com, and left all names, ages, cities, the '<more than 100 miners' figure and the 'MC#1' mine designation exactly as the fact set gives them. Also restored full first-reference names for Nowland and Humphrey in the defendants list.

  2. Version 19 Aug 2026, 00:19

    First published.

  3. Version 19 Aug 2026, 00:09current

    First published.

  4. Version 19 Aug 2026, 00:23current

    First published.

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