Kuwaiti oil fires

[7] By the eve of the Iraqi invasion, Kuwait had set production quotas to almost 1.9 million barrels per day (300,000 m3/d), which coincided with a sharp drop in the price of oil.

[8] It is also hypothesized that Iraq decided to destroy the oil fields to achieve a military advantage, believing the intense smoke plumes serving as smoke screens created by the burning oil wells would inhibit Coalition offensive airstrikes, foil allied precision guided weapons and spy satellites,[9] and could screen Iraq's military movements.

Furthermore, it is thought that Iraq's military leaders may have regarded the heat, smoke, and debris from hundreds of burning oil wells as presenting a formidable area denial obstacle to Coalition forces.

[10] The Iraqi military combat engineers also released oil into low-lying areas for defensive purposes against infantry and mechanized units along Kuwait's southern border, by constructing several "fire trenches" roughly one kilometre (0.62 mi) long, and three metres (9.8 ft) meters wide and deep to impede the advance of Coalition ground forces.

[12] According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's report to Congress, "the retreating Iraqi army set fire to or damaged over 700 oil wells, storage tanks, refineries, and facilities in Kuwait.

[20] The smoke screening was also used by Iraqi anti-armor forces to a successful extent in the Battle of Phase Line Bullet, having aided in achieving the element of surprise against advancing Bradley IFVs, along with increasing the general fog of war.

The fires have been linked with what was later deemed Gulf War syndrome, a chronic disorder afflicting military veterans and civilian workers that include fatigue, muscle pain, and cognitive problems; however, studies have indicated that the firemen who capped the wells did not report any of the symptoms that the soldiers experienced.

We knew it was smoke when the mucous from our nostrils started to look black..."A paper published in 2000 analyzed the degree of exposure by troops to particulate matter, including soot.

The paper included troop medical records,[26] and in its conclusion: "A literature review indicated negligible to nonexistent health risk from other inhaled particulate material (other than silica) during the Gulf War".

The pipeline had been mildly damaged but, once repaired, its flow was reversed to pump Persian gulf seawater to the burning oil wells.

In fighting a fire at a directly vertical spewing wellhead, high explosives, such as dynamite were used to create a blast wave that pushes the burning fuel and local atmospheric oxygen away from the well.

[34] Immediately following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, predictions were made of an environmental disaster stemming from Iraqi threats to blow up captured Kuwaiti oil wells.

Speculation ranging from a nuclear winter type scenario, to heavy acid rain and even short term immediate global warming were presented at the World Climate Conference in Geneva that November.

[35][36] On January 10, 1991, a paper appearing in the journal Nature stated Paul Crutzen's calculations predicting that the oil well fires would produce a cloud of smoke covering half the Northern Hemisphere, resulting in widespread cooling similar to nuclear winter; temperatures beneath the cloud would be reduced by 5–10 degrees Celsius after 100 days.

[37] This was followed by articles printed in the Wilmington Morning Star and the Baltimore Sun newspapers in mid to late January 1991, with the popular television scientist personality of the time, Carl Sagan, who was also the co-author of the first few nuclear winter papers along with Richard P. Turco, John W. Birks, Alan Robock and Paul Crutzen together collectively stated that they expected catastrophic nuclear winter-like effects with continental sized impacts of "sub-freezing" temperatures as a result if the Iraqis went through with their threats of igniting 300 to 500 pressurized oil wells and they burned for a few months.

[9][36] Later when Operation Desert Storm had begun, S. Fred Singer and Carl Sagan discussed the possible environmental impacts of the Kuwaiti petroleum fires on the ABC News program Nightline.

[41] Sagan later conceded in his book The Demon-Haunted World that his prediction did not turn out to be correct: "it was pitch black at noon and temperatures dropped 4–6 °C over the Arabian Gulf, but not much smoke reached stratospheric altitudes and Asia was spared.

[46] Thus the immediate consequence of the arson sabotage was a dramatic regional decrease in air quality, causing respiratory problems for many Kuwaitis and those in neighboring countries.

[43][44] In a paper in the DTIC archive, published in 2000, it states that "Calculations based on smoke from Kuwaiti oil fires in May and June 1991 indicate that combustion efficiency was about 96% in producing carbon dioxide.

Bechtel Corporation produced a short documentary titled Kuwait: Bringing Back the Sun that summarizes and focuses upon the fire fighting efforts, which were dubbed the Al-Awda (Arabic for "The Return") project.