The Queensland Fire Department has announced it will plead guilty to a workplace health and safety charge arising out of a 2023 warehouse fire that killed Firefighter Izabella “Izzy” Nash and seriously injured Senior Firefighter Lia Drew.

Nash, 46, and Drew were operating at a warehouse fire in Slacks Creek, south of Brisbane, on May 2, 2023, when both were seriously injured. Nash was rescued unconscious and died the following day. Drew survived but suffered serious burns.

Following an investigation, workplace safety officials charged the department in 2025 with failing to comply with its health and safety duty, exposing an individual to a risk of death, serious injury or illness.

Queensland’s Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (WHS Act) imposes a primary duty on a “person conducting a business or undertaking” (PCBU) to ensure, “so far as is reasonably practicable,” the health and safety of its workers while they are at work. It also requires a PCBU to ensure that the health and safety of other persons is not put at risk by the work.

The citation from the Nash case comes from § 32, a Category 2 offense. It requires three things:

• 1. the defendant has a health and safety duty;
• 2. the defendant fails to comply with that duty; and
• 3. the failure exposes an individual to a risk of death or serious injury or illness.

That is analogous to § 5(a)(1) of our OSHA general duty requirement, which requires an employer to provide employment and a workplace free from “recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm.”

According to a statement released by the department, the violations involved failures associated with fireground radio communications. Prosecutors are not alleging those failures caused Nash’s death or Drew’s injuries.

On August 28, the Queensland Fire Department announced that it intends to plead guilty to the charge.

Incidentally, when Nash was killed in May 2023, the organization was called Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES). On July 1, 2024, the Queensland government restructured QFES, and established the Queensland Fire Department (QFD) as a new (successor) agency.