Devil's Cigarette Lighter

The Devil's Cigarette Lighter was a natural gas well fire at Gassi Touil in the Sahara Desert of Algeria.

The fire was ignited on November 6, 1961, and burned until being extinguished by Red Adair and his colleagues, who used explosives to deprive the flame of oxygen, on April 28, 1962.

The blowout and fire were estimated to have consumed enough gas to supply Paris for three months, burning 550,000,000 cubic feet (16,000,000 m3) per day.

[6][7] Adair's team cleared wreckage from near the wellhead with shielded bulldozers, dug wells, and excavated three reservoirs for water supplies.

[1] Part of the John Wayne movie Hellfighters (1968) was loosely based upon the feats of Adair during the 1962 Sahara Desert fire.