Kuwait 1991 – fire images

Following the Gulf War, more than 700 oil wells in Kuwait were set ablaze, creating one of the largest firefighting and well control operations in history. Safety Boss crews were on the ground as part of the international response, working to bring these wells under control using well-stinging techniques: crews used a crane to jam a stinger into the wellhead, holding it firmly in place while heavy mud was pumped through a kill line to overcome the well’s natural pressure and extinguish the fire. More than half of the burning wells in Kuwait were controlled using this method. These images document the scale of the fires and the operation to bring them under control, a defining chapter in Safety Boss’s well control history and a testament to the expertise our teams bring to the most extreme emergency response scenarios