Anglo American said on Sunday it was battling an underground fire at its Grosvenor metallurgical coal mine in the Australian state of Queensland after a fire broke out there on Saturday.
The mine site is in the mining town of Moranbah, located approximately 1,000 km north of Brisbane, the state capital. It is in this same mine that an explosion in May 2020 seriously injured five workers.
“We continue to manage an underground combustion event at Grosvenor Mine, following a localised ignition on the longwall on Saturday,” Anglo American said on Facebook on Sunday.
“Our priority is to safely extinguish the underground fire, which emergency response teams are managing from the surface.
The site has been closed and only essential emergency response team members are present, the company said in a previous Facebook post.
Anglo American said work had begun to temporarily seal the mine from the surface, a “critical step” to prevent smoke from the fire impacting residents of the town of 9,425.
“Due to the highly complex and evolving nature of this event, this will take time as we need to ensure the safety of all emergency crews undertaking this work,” the company said.
All mine workers were safely evacuated after the fire broke out.
A Queensland Fire and Emergency Services spokesperson said the agency was not at the scene of the incident, which was being handled by the mine.
Queensland Mines Minister Scott Stewart said there would be a “full and thorough investigation” into the fire, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported on Sunday.
The Grosvenor mine produced 2.797 million tonnes of metallurgical coal in 2023, representing 17% of Anglo American’s coal production, according to its annual report. The company is the world’s third largest exporter of metallurgical coal.
In the mine, the company uses longwall mining, a method used to extract long panels of coal in a single slice.
