The Coal Face by Tom Doig

Author:Tom Doig
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143573074
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2015-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

FORESEEING THE FORESEEABLE

The Victorian summer of 2013–14 was one of the hottest ever. There were extended record-breaking heatwaves and hardly any rain. In the lead-up to the Hazelwood mine fire, then–Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley warned that the weekend of 8–9 February 2014 would bring the most extreme fire-risk conditions the state had experienced since Black Saturday. For Lapsley to declare a ‘code red’ (catastrophic) fire danger warning in the Latrobe Valley the forest fire danger index would have had to be 101 or above; the danger index for that weekend was 97. Lapsley issued a number of warnings to the community, and announced a total fire ban for 8 and 9 February.

All this information, taken in total, is what the Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry Report meant when it said the mine fire was ‘foreseeable’.

Unfortunately, no one within GDF Suez managed to foresee it. In the GDF Suez offices, all but one of the key employees who were trained to act as Emergency Commanders in the event of a fire decided to leave the Latrobe Valley that weekend to escape the heat. Mine Shift Supervisor Ian Wilkinson, who was rostered on, went to work. Technical Services Manager James Faithfull went to the beachside town of Inverloch. Mine Production Manager Rob Dugan drove four hours east to Mallacoota. GDF Suez’s Mine Director, Garry Wilkinson, was on holiday somewhere in Queensland.

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