On 9 February 2014, a day of extreme fire danger in Victoria, the Latrobe Valley in Gippsland experienced two significant bushfires that threatened communities, as well as critical infrastructure including two of the three major open-cut, brown-coal mines that provide the fuel for power generation in Victoria. Spotting from these bushfires impacted the Hazelwood mine starting many fires within the mine itself. The mine has highly volatile exposed masses of coal in an excavation some 100 metres deep and covers an area significantly greater than the entire Melbourne CBD.

The fire burned for 45 days, providing unprecedented extinguishment challenges while directly impacting the community of Morwell, with a population of 14,000 people, and other surrounding communities. The smoke from the fire shrouded communities for long periods of time and was a serious health emergency due to the mass of the smoke and the level of by-products and particulates contained therein.

Subsequently, an independent Inquiry into the fire was conducted and handed down its findings in August 2014; this included 18 recommendations and 61 affirmations to be actioned. These included some key initiatives relating to incident management and the integration of industry into the incident management structure under Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System (AIIMS), community engagement, air monitoring, health and welfare.

A State Government multi-agency taskforce was established to draw together all relevant government agencies, the coal mine operators and local government to review the fire/emergency management preparedness of the mines, oversee the implementation of relevant Inquiry affirmations and support improved capability and interoperability between the coal-mine industry, government agencies and community. This presentation will provide an overview of the work of the Taskforce that has demonstrated a best-practice approach to delivering outcomes for communities. It has set a new direction for emergency management in terms of integrated strategic planning and operations between government agencies and industry, and builds on partnerships to provide tangible outcomes for greater efficiencies and safety outcomes.