The Hazelwood Mine Fire 2014

On 9 February 2014 a fire began in the open cut brown coal mine at Hazelwood near Morwell in Victoria. This fire burnt for 45 days before it was extinguished. The fire necessitated the evacuation of parts of Morwell and required a major coordinated fire-fighting effort. The severity of the fire and the impact upon the local community caused the Victorian Government to institute a Board of Inquiry (Teague et al., 2014). This paper discusses the information presented to the Board of Inquiry into this fire and the conclusions and recommendation of the Inquiry, focussing on what caused the fire and what could be done to prevent a recurrence. This paper draws heavily on the Board’s published report of over 430 pages (Teague et al., 2014) and is the source of the information unless otherwise stated.