Oil well fire

Oil well fires are oil or gas wells that have caught on fire and burn. Oil well fires can be the result of human actions, such as accidents or arson, or natural events, such as lightning. They can exist on a small scale, such as an oil field spill catching fire, or on a huge scale, as in geyser-like jets of flames from ignited high pressure wells. A frequent cause of a well fire is a high-pressure blowout during drilling operations.

Oil well fires are more difficult to extinguish than regular fires due to the enormous fuel supply for the 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. (This is a similar principle to blowing out a candle.) The flame is removed and the fuel can continue to spill out without catching fire.

After blowing out the fire, the wellhead must be capped to stop the flow of oil. During this time, the fuel and oxygen required to create another inferno are present in copious amounts. At this perilous stage, one small spark (perhaps from a steel or iron tool striking a stone) or other heat source might re-ignite the oil.

To prevent re-ignition, brass or bronze tools, which do not strike sparks, or paraffin wax-coated tools are used during the capping process. Meticulous care is used to avoid heat and sparks, or any other ignition source. Re-ignition at the wellhead may take the form of an extremely powerful explosion, possibly even worse than the original blowout.

Some of the technology used by the 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. The invention is concerned with removing a section of a fluid pipeline and inserting a valve or other component therein without destroying line pressure and without losing any significant amount of fluid passing through the pipeline.

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