Australia Weather News

A Christmas Day emergency-level fire has caused significant damage to the Boddington gold mine, 130 kilometres south-east of Perth. 

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) downgraded the fire to a Watch and Act on Friday morning as conditions improved due to increased humidity and consolidated containment lines.

But it remains uncontained and out of control, and has burnt through nearly 3,700 hectares, with some residents spending Christmas night in an evacuation centre in the nearby town of Williams.

DFES said there have been no property losses or injuries. 

Mine site significantly damaged 

DFES Incident Controller Phil Brandrett told a community meeting in Williams there had been significant damage to the infrastructure of the gold mine. 

"Particularly the water supply out, some of the pipes and some of the power generation and the communications at the mine, which affects obviously how the mine operates," Mr Brandrett said.

"So one of our priorities with the mine is to assist them to assess the road to the mine, make it safe and enable them to get teams in to assess the damage and do the remediation and repairs to reinstate to a level of normality where they can start putting people back in and start production again, or operations."

He added the fire was currently 1 or 2 kilometres from Boddington.

"The intention is to get some machinery that's in place on the northern boundary to track it," he said.

"It'll run very fast, at up to 5 kilometres an hour in the current winds that we've got."

He reiterated DFES would let people back to their homes "as soon as possible", and was hopeful firefighters would be in a better position in the next day or two. 

"Obviously the weather conditions haven't been conducive over the last two days to assist crews to get on top of it," he said.

Christmas evacuations

Boddington resident Dawn Duffy evacuated to a nearby roadhouse with her three dogs and granddaughter, while her son stayed to defend the property.

"[My granddaughter] was more frightened that I was … you're just trying not to panic because I didn't want to upset her," she said.

"It was interesting watching all the bomber helicopters coming in."

Boddington residents Michelle and John Dale evacuated to the Sports Pavilion in the nearby town of Williams with other community members.

"They were all in the Christmas sprit, the fire didn't stop that," Ms Dale said.

She said leaving was "a bit of a panic", and they had no plans to try to return home today.

Ms Dale said the blaze brought back memories from the 2016 Yarloop fires, which destroyed 100 homes in the historic mill town.

"That's why I don't think a lot of people hesitated to evacuate when they were told to."

Laura Thomson slept in the car park outside the evacuation centre with her pets.

"We really had no time to think," she said.

"If we weren't going to leave, our lives could have been in danger."

The Boddington Shire President Eugene Smalberger said about 50 people spent the night at the evacuation centre, many with animals.

"Everyone has seen the glow and realised that this is a serious situation and to get out," she said.

"There was a few of the older people that really just wanted to go back home, and we needed to explain to them that there was really no chance — just make peace with it and stay for the night."

She said the fire has been burning for two weeks, but flared up with the heat, starting a spotfire closer to town than anticipated.

"Unfortunately, that one was in a really rough terrain in the forest, so from the start, they couldn't fight it. So they had containment lines, but it jumped the containment lines."

"With the size of the flames, it's nearly impossible to fight it from the ground."

Residents thank firies

Boddington resident Mark remained in town on Thursday night to help.

He said the fire was "racing across the hills" and burnt a lot of timber around 5pm on Thursday night.

"Then the wind changed direction, and then it was gusting for a wee bit, but then the wind died off," he said.

"Obviously, all the hills are still sparkling with fires, but it could be worse."

Deputy Shire president Paul Carrotts left family Christmas in Mandurah to come home to Boddington to help out.

"There's certainly still a red glow, you look to the north towards the gold mine, there's definitely a red glow," he said.

He thanked the firefighters who worked all throughout Christmas Day, and the nearby town of Williams for taking in evacuated residents.

"The community can't thank them enough," he said.

Some workers remain at mine

The ABC received reports on Thursday night that a number of workers remained at the mining camp south-east of Newmont's Boddington gold mine, near where the fire was burning.

One worker said they had initially planned to leave but had been told the evacuation had been "cancelled".

Newmont told the ABC on Friday all workers had the option to leave, but about 70 chose to stay on site — which had been designated as a safe zone — rather than navigating roads impacted by fallen trees and power lines.

Newmont said others had chosen to stay to assist firefighters.

Following reports of delayed evacuations on Wednesday night, Newmont also clarified that DFES had determined the fire was too close to the mine's blasting zone, which contains explosives, meaning workers had to wait in the car park to be escorted.