‘Like Armageddon’: Impact of toxic SKM rubbish blaze laid bare

A recycling centre fire that covered two Melbourne suburbs in acrid smoke and thick ash was so toxic that it pumped dangerous particles into the atmosphere at more than 15 times the level considered hazardous to humans.

People who lived and worked near the massive 2017 fire at the SKM recycling facility at Coolaroo in the city’s north told the County Court on Wednesday that the fire fallout had left their lungs burning, eyes stinging and – days later – the ground covered in still-smouldering ash.

Huge stockpiles of rubbish went up in flames at the SKM recycling plant in Coolaroo in July 2017.Credit: Courtesy of Seven News

The blaze on July 13, 2017, led to the evacuation of about 100 homes, several businesses and a hotel.

The sprawling SKM facility – where kerbside rubbish from several Melbourne councils was recycled – was so large that after the fire, 1111 truckloads of waste were deemed no longer suitable for recycling and had to be taken to rubbish tips.

In 2019, SKM was charged by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) with five counts of breaching the Environmental Protection Act over the fire, including aggravated pollution and permitting an environmental hazard. The company has not filed a defence, but the DPP must still prove to a jury that it breached the law.

On the first day of the criminal trial, the County Court heard from residents and businesses about the fire’s impact, including on their health.

Colleen Kirwan was evacuated from her home in Dallas with her two adult daughters and three cats because of the raging blaze.

Kirwan told the court that as she went outside to prepare to evacuate and check on an elderly neighbour, she was confronted by a scene of large plumes of smoke billowing over her home from the nearby recycling plant.

“It was awful,” she told the court. “I’d never seen anything like it before. I hated it. It was like Armageddon – it was horrible.

“There was just orange glow in the distance towards the north of our house, and it was full of smoke, and it was really acrid and very choking.”

The court heard that SKM had at least three other fires on the site in February 2017.

Kirwan said she was outside for only a short period, yet had been physically affected by the smoke.

“It really was hard to breathe – I had my shirt over my mouth,” she said. “My eyes were stinging and my lungs were burning.”

Kirwan told the court that when she returned home – two days after the fire began – her front yard was covered in ash and the outside of her home in soot.

“When we returned, there was a lot of ash … There was also a lot of ash on the front lawn, and that was, like, thick,” she said. “It was almost like foam. I don’t know what it was … and it was still smouldering.”

Ronald Lelieveld, the operator of a Maffra Street business close to the fire that services scuba-diving equipment, told the court that when he returned a week after the blaze, he found the shop covered in fire debris.

“Our shop was filled up with particles, dust, particles of fire and plastics, and also paper, lots of paper shards inside the shop,” he said.

Lelieveld said it took two weeks for his business to return to its normal workflow.

Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) scientific adviser Nicholas Perkins, an expert in air-quality testing, told the court that in the business area, air-particle detection devices found levels were 15 times above what was considered high risk in Victoria.

The court heard the FSV did 12 spot readings inside homes near the blaze.

“Outside we were getting [readings of] 5500 micrograms per cubic metre, and inside, 2500 micrograms per cubic metre, which is extremely high,” he said.

The court heard that at the time of the fire, a hazardous reading was 250 micrograms per cubic metre. FSV also tested the levels inside rooms at the Coolaroo Hotel, which had an average reading of 1000 micrograms per cubic metre.

EPA officials told the court they found large piles of rubbish around the site, including one with an ordinary chair placed on top – a crude lookout tower for workers before the fire.

Senior EPA staff member Viranga Abeywickrema told the court that he had visited the fire site over several days from the evening of July 13 and found piles of baled and unbaled waste – some “over four metres high”.

“It was a really quite a high stockpile, and, as well, the site had lots of waste. It appeared that the waste was burning,” Abeywickrema said.

“I recall climbing a high kind of bundle and just looking at the area, just to survey, kind of, the impacts of fire, the footprint of the firefighting operations.”

The case continues.

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