International Power Says Australia Coal Mine Fire Under Control

By Angela Macdonald-Smith

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- International Power Plc, the biggest electricity producer in Australia, and regional fire officials said a blaze they are fighting at a coal mine in Victoria state since Sept. 14 has been brought under control.

The fire in a disused part of the Hazelwood mine has reduced in intensity after easing winds allowed firefighters to extinguish large areas of the blaze, the company and the Country Fire Authority said today in an e-mailed statement. The mine supplies fuel to a power plant that meets about a quarter of Victoria's electricity needs.

Coal and power supplies at Hazelwood haven't been affected, according to the statement.

The Hazelwood mine and power station are in the Latrobe Valley, 150 kilometers (93 miles) east of Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city. The mine produces about 18 million metric tons of brown coal a year to fuel the 1,675-megawatt power station, according to the Australian Web site of London-based International Power.

``The focus now is on making significant progress in the more benign weather conditions today,'' Greg Flynn, incident controller at the Country Fire Authority, said in the statement. ``We will continue to work on suppression today and deploy some specialized thermal imaging equipment to identify any remaining hotspots.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Angela Macdonald-Smith in Sydney at amacdonaldsm@bloomberg.net