Ulawun and the fire mountains of West New Britain

Ulawun, the highest peak

Ulawun rises to 2,334 metres, the highest mountain in the Bismarck Archipelago and one of the most active volcanoes in Papua New Guinea. Volcanologists list it as one of the world's sixteen Decade Volcanoes: mountains chosen for special study because they combine a history of large eruptions with many people living close by.

Its shape is the classic one: a steep, almost symmetrical cone with a small crater at the top, often trailing a thin plume of steam.

The eruption of 26 June 2019

Early on 26 June 2019 Ulawun erupted strongly, sending ash to about 19 kilometres high. Families from the villages around its base moved quickly into care centres. By the next day about 6,800 people had gathered in two centres; by 28 June the number had grown to about 10,600, spread across at least ten sites. Smaller eruptions followed in August and October 2019, and the volcano erupted again in November 2023.

Pago, inside the old Witori caldera

Closer to Kimbe and Hoskins stands Pago, a young cone growing inside the much older Witori caldera. About 3,300 years ago Witori exploded so violently that ash buried gardens, forest and reef across the whole Willaumez region. Archaeologists read that ash layer like a page in a history book: what lies below it and what lies above it are very different, as the Lapita chapter explains. Pago itself erupted again in 2002.

The gifts of a hot island

The heat that threatens also gives. It warms the hot springs at Pangalu near Talasea and the bubbling sulphur ponds at Pokili, where megapode birds bury their eggs in the warm ground. Volcanic ash breaks down into dark, rich soil, which is one reason the plains around Kimbe and Hoskins now grow oil palm and busy village gardens.

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