Wittenoom is a former town and a declared contaminated site, 1,420 kilometres (880 mi) north-north-east of Perth, in the Hamersley Range in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Wittenoom Gorge Airport served as part of the routes that MMA and Airlines (WA) operated on for bringing workers and supplies in and out of the asbestos mine.

The Wittenoom steering committee met in April 2013 to finalise closure of the town, limit access to the area, and raise awareness of the risks.

[16] The area was originally resided on by the Panyjima, also known as the Banjima, an Aboriginal Australian people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Leo Snell, a kangaroo shooter on Mulga Downs, pegged a claim on Yampire Gorge, where there was a lot more blue asbestos.

Walters and Leonard purchased Yampire Gorge from Snell, moved their treatment plant there, and began mining and treating the fibre.

By 1940, twenty-two men were employed at the Yampire Gorge workings and about 375 tons were mined and transported by mule team wagons to the coast at Point Samson.

Lang Hancock, who watched his station property transform to a town, stated in 1958: "Izzy Walters was the man who stuck it and produced the market that made Wittenoom of today possible."

[19][20] As of 2016, Wittenoom had only three permanent residents[21] who defied the Government of Western Australia's announced intention to remove services, disconnect electric power, compulsorily acquire the remaining privately-owned properties and demolish the town.

[24][25][26] In November 2006, a report by consultants GHD Group and Parsons Brinckerhoff evaluated the continuing risks associated with asbestos contamination in the town and surrounding areas,[27] classing the danger to visitors as medium and to residents as extreme.

It records all new cases in order to help the government develop policies about how to deal with asbestos that still remains in the country and reduce the incidence of mesothelioma in the future.

A bushfire reportedly hit the area around 26 December 2022, causing damage to remaining buildings and disrupting plans to demolish the site during the 2023 dry season.

Digital poet Jason Nelson created the work Wittenoom: speculative shell and the cancerous breeze, an interactive exploration of the town's death.

[39] In the thriller novel The Dead Heart, by Douglas Kennedy, the plot involves an imaginary location called Wollanup,[40] which corresponds to Wittenoom.