Workers at an underground coal mine in New South Wales were safely sequestered in refuge chambers for around five hours after a pile of materials caught fire with no apparent ignition source.
An operator had pulled into the level when they suddenly smelled smoke and realised there was excessive smoke was coming out of the drive.
The shift supervisor acted quickly to initiate the evacuation of all underground workers back to the refuge chambers.
Workers in the refuge chambers on levels below the scene were evacuated after the fire was extinguished. Workers spent between 2.5 and five hours in refuge.
The NSW Resources Regulator attended the scene and discovered a pile of pallets, a vent bag and poly pipe had spontaneously caught fire, though no ignition source was found.
“Fires underground have enormous capacity to result in multiple fatalities, which is why risk control measures to prevent fires are of utmost importance,” the Regulator said.
“Inspection regimes, housekeeping standards and emergency response procedures should be routinely examined to ensure minimum standards are met or exceeded.
“Piles of flammable materials should never be allowed to accumulate underground.”
Fires are an unfortunate risk for many underground mines across Australia, particularly coal mines.
A causal investigation is currently underway for a fire that broke out almost 1km underground at Perilya’s Broken Hill mine in NSW.
The fire originally started on Sunday January 12 and was extinguished by the early hours of January 13, but restarted a short time later. It was extinguished for good later that week. All workers were safely removed from the mine with no injuries reported.
Another investigation is still ongoing in Queensland to determine the cause of the underground fire at Anglo American’s Grosvenor coal mine that burned for most of July 25.
The Mining and Energy Union announced it would be launching an investigation late last year to work with Anglo to determine not only how the fire occurred, but whether it would support a reopening of the mine.
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