Oil well fire

In fighting a fire at a wellhead, typically high explosives, such as dynamite, are used to create a shockwave that pushes the burning fuel and local atmospheric oxygen away from a well.

During this time, copious fuel and oxygen are present; any spark or other heat source might ignite a fire worse than the original blowout.

Some of the technology used by Red Adair to seal some of the Kuwait oil fires without re-igniting the flow of oil, originated in a patent by John R. Duncan (United States Patent 3,108,499 filed September 28, 1960, granted October 29,1963), a method and apparatus for severing section of fluid pipeline therefrom.

The patent was granted a year after Red Adair's success in combating the Devil's Cigarette Lighter gas well fire.

Smoke from burnt crude oil contains many chemicals, including sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, soot, benzopyrene, Poly aromatic hydrocarbons, and dioxins.