The Morwell mine fire

Morwell mine fire: vulnerable residents advised to relocate

Health chief urges pregnant women, elderly, young children and those with lung conditions to leave the area as a precaution

"The coalmine fire has been belching thick smoke since 9 February. Photograph: Mike Keating/Newspix/REX

theGuardian,

28 February, 2014

Vulnerable people living near a raging coalmine fire in Morwell, still burning three weeks after it was deliberately lit on 9 February, have been advised to leave their homes.

Speaking in Morwell on Friday, Victoria’s chief health officer Dr Rosemary Lester advised “particularly at-risk groups” in south Morwell, including pregnant women, the elderly, young children and anyone with a pre-existing lung condition, to temporarily relocate from the area.

“We are not currently seeing serious health effects from the smoke, such as an increase in ambulance callouts or hospital attendances,” she said. “Health impacts may change if vulnerable people continue to be exposed to smoke.”

She added that the advice was precautionary and that there had been no significant increase in air danger.

The Victorian premier, Denis Napthine, said there was “no compulsion” for people to leave, and stressed that no evacuation had been called, but said that some residents’ health might be in danger “based on the prolonged exposure to the smoke and the prospect of further exposure”.

The premier said he understood the “frustration” of Morwell’s 13,000 residents, facing their 19th day living under a fog of smoke and ash. “The government is leaving no stone unturned to fix the problem, to provide support for the community, to provide support for families, to look after the wellbeing of the people Morwell, and to tackle the fire,” he said.

Earlier, fire services commissioner Craig Lapsley told reporters the fire would continue to belch thick smoke over the area for days. “We still believe if everything progresses well the best-case scenario is another 10 days before that fire is to a position that it won’t put up significant smoke or ash over Morwell,” he said.

Victoria’s Department of Human Services will make grants available to those Morwell residents who wish to move, and extra police will be called in to guard their homes.

Political fallout from the fire looks set to linger long after the smoke blanketing the rural Victorian town finally clears. Speaking in Morwell on Thursday, Victorian deputy premier Peter Ryan said an inquiry was needed to “get to the bottom” of the origins of the massive fire, which is expected to continue burning for at least two weeks.

“We need to get to the bottom of why it has developed in the first place and all the contributing factors to it and we need to learn from this,” he said.

“I have no doubt inquiries will be conducted in great detail by respective agencies to make sure we get to the bottom of all of this.”

Earlier, the Environment Defenders Office (EDO) called for an independent public inquiry into what it labelled a “major pollution and public health incident”.

“It’s time the local community around the mine and the Victorian public were given some answers as to how this has been allowed to happen,” Felicity Millner, EDO principal solicitor, said.

High smoke alerts remained in place on Friday with air quality measured at around 767, according to Victoria’s Environmental Protection Authority, an improvement on scores of above 1,000 late on Thursday. A reading above 150 is considered very poor.

Authorities have given 25,000 face masks to locals but Lester, said on Thursday that carbon monoxide levels were not yet high enough to trigger an evacuation.

Morwell residents have organised a rally on Sunday to demand compensation from mine owner GDF Suez Australian Energy.

Five hundred people are expected to attend the demonstration at Immigration park in Morwell, where organisers will gather details on health issues and the financial impact of the fire to form the basis for a potential class action against the mine owners.

A rally organiser, Nerissa Albon, said the disused part of the mine that was currently ablaze was supposed to be covered with soil and grass to prevent flammability.

She said she had visited a solicitor about legal action on behalf of Morwell residents.

“I was advised to have a class action or royal commission, that we need to have data from the people of Morwell,” Albon said.

“We want to be compensated for loss of earnings, compensated for health issues over the last two weeks.”

GDF Suez said the mine’s rehabilitation, including the capping and covering of disused coal pits, was “ongoing”, and that large parts of the area currently on fire had already been “grassed” as part of the program.

Police on Wednesday gave chilling details of the massive fire’s origins. Victorian police chief commissioner Ken Lay said it was believed the firebug lit a “test fire” in Hazelwood on 28 January to study its behaviour, before setting another in the area on the morning of 9 February.

The arsonist then set three fires on the Strzelecki Highway at Driffield, near Morwell, around 1.30pm on the Sunday, which spotted into the Hazelwood open-cut coalmine and continues to burn.

“This fire was set on the worst fire day for this year and had the potential to cause an enormous amount of damage and loss of life,” Lay told reporters.

Police believe the person responsible was likely to be someone who lives or works in the Latrobe Valley or wider Gippsland region, with the fires lit along dirt tracks leading into plantations behind the highway which also provided easy getaway routes.

“This was someone with a vehicle, a mode of transport, to set three sets of fire within a 15-minute period,” Inspector Mark Langham said.

The test fires lit two weeks earlier were also in similar locations, set within a few kilometres of each other on high fire-danger days, he said.

“We believe that there’s a bit of a systematic arsonist and we really want to put a stop to this person very quickly,” Langham said.

A police spokeswoman said on Friday that investigations were ongoing.