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Risk Management Behind Kuwait'sFirefighting Emergency PlanAli Mohamed Al-Damkhi aa Department of Environmental Sciences , Public Authority forApplied Education and Training (PAAET) , KuwaitPublished online: 19 Mar 2007.

To cite this article: Ali Mohamed Al-Damkhi (2007) Risk Management Behind Kuwait's FirefightingEmergency Plan, Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal, 13:2, 449-456, DOI:10.1080/10807030701226251

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Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, 13: 449–456, 2007Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1080-7039 print / 1549-7680 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10807030701226251

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Risk Management Behind Kuwait’s FirefightingEmergency Plan

Ali Mohamed Al-DamkhiDepartment of Environmental Sciences, Public Authority for Applied Educationand Training (PAAET), Kuwait

ABSTRACTThere are usually only about 12–30 oil-well blowouts per year worldwide. Thus,

the situation in which 608 wells were burning at the same time in Kuwait, due tothe implementation of the “Scorched-Earth” threat by the retreating Iraqi forces,was not only unique but was also beyond the capabilities of any nation to deal with.This article reviews the published literature on prominent oil-well blowouts bothworldwide and in Kuwait before the 1991 environmental disaster, and describes thesituation in the country and the status of the oil fields after the catastrophe, whichprompted the development of a strategic emergency plan. The important measuresadopted as part of the strategy to manage the risk of the environmental disaster andto extinguish and cap Kuwait’s oil fires are detailed in this article.

Key Words: environmental management, firefighting operation, Kuwait oil fires,strategic plan.

INTRODUCTION

The literature describing prominent oil-well blowouts worldwide proves that ex-tinguishing an oil-well fire has always been difficult, and that many firefighters canlose their lives during endeavors to put out such fires under adverse weather condi-tions. The two worst examples were as follows: first, the July 1988 blaze that ragedafter the explosion on the Piper Alpha oil platform, which killed 167 men in theNorth Sea (Doyle 2004); and second, the oil well in Romania that was on fire formore than 3 years and killed several firefighting personnel (Husain 1994).

One of the earliest documented blowouts in the 20th century was recorded in1938, when a firefighter fixed the damage created by a blown valve on an oil platformin Texas (Doyle 2004). The two largest explosions ever recorded in history beforethe Kuwait catastrophe were caused by the following events: first, the torching of

Received 21 March 2006; revised manuscript accepted 30 May 2006.Address correspondence to Dr. Ali Mohamed Al-Damkhi, Department of Environmental Sci-ences, Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET), PO Box 9989, Salmiyah22100, State of Kuwait. E-mail: aboanas58@hotmail.com

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five oil wells at one time in a single Libyan oil field in 1965 and second, the suddenblowouts of 25 oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico in the late 1960s, which were controlledafter 6 months (Al-Damkhi 2005).

Sabotage of Kuwait’s Oil Wells

On February 21, 1991, as it became increasingly apparent that the U.S. and Al-lied Forces would oust them from Kuwait, the retreating Iraqi forces conducted a“Scorched-Earth” action. The actual sabotage turned out to be about five times worsethan expected. A total of 755 Kuwaiti oil wells sustained damage (608 of which wereburning, 42 of which were gushing, and 105 of which were damaged), whereas only113 active wells escaped damage and remained intact (Bechtel 1991).

The Kuwaiti government faced a difficult situation when its members returnedhome from exile. The country was totally devastated and the people were deeplyshocked by such a disaster, which led to a decline in oil industry activity, an incomedeficiency, and a lack of the fuel necessary to run electric power plants, refineries,and water desalination plants. The Kuwaiti government decided to act rapidly andvigorously in order to address this catastrophe, which looked certain to cause seriousenvironmental deterioration.

Development of a Strategic Emergency Plan

As there are usually only about 12–30 oil-well blowouts per year worldwide (Al-Damkhi 2005), clearly the situation in which 608 wells were burning at the sametime was not only unique—having never been faced before in human history—butwas also beyond the capabilities of any nation to deal with.

In response to the widespread destruction, a new strategic emergency plan forextinguishing and capping Kuwait’s oil fires was announced, and huge firefightingefforts were organized by the Kuwaiti government. As a result, the blazes were undercontrol in less than 8 months, contrary to experts’ predictions that such efforts andoperations would take up to 5 years to be completed. The important measures tobe adopted and the risks to be managed in the strategic emergency plan were asdescribed below (Al-Ameeri 1992).

First, all concerned nations and companies worldwide were to be invited to partic-ipate in a multinational campaign to cope with the consequences of Iraq’s environ-mental atrocities, and to help avert the enormous potential environmental disaster.Second, priority in the campaign was to be given to the Allied Nations, which wouldallow the maximum participation of teams and companies, hence decreasing thetime needed to extinguish the fires and cap the wells. Third, the possibility of settingup a new Kuwaiti firefighting team was to be pursued based on the training and ex-perience that would be gained by working closely with the international firefightingcompanies.

Fourth, the expected sabotage losses were intended to be cut from US$43 billionto only US$12.5 billion by reducing the period of firefighting operations from 2 yearsto a maximum of just 7 months. Fifth, the huge oil reserves—comprising the solenatural source of income and classified as the country’s top interest—were to be pro-tected by rapidly gaining control of the blazing fires, which would greatly decreasehuman health hazards and prevent environmental deterioration. Sixth, the inter-national community and inventors in the firefighting area were to be encouraged

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to develop new methods and techniques, and to use the latest technology available,which would shorten the firefighting operation period.

DISCUSSION

Risk Management during the Pre-Firefighting Stage

The numerous firefighting teams had to overcome many difficulties in extin-guishing and capping the burning wells. Although many of the teams had previousexperience in responding to accidental fires, few had ever dealt with planned sabo-tage. In addition to the natural risks involved in the firefighting effort, other hazardsrepresented serious problems and were of immediate concern. The priorities duringthe pre-firefighting stage included the vital procedures (Bou-Yabis 1992) detailed inwhat follows.

The first was the removal and clearance of vast amounts of unexploded munitionsand booby traps—left behind by the coalition bombing, the ground war, and theretreating Iraqi forces—from each new area where the firefighting teams plannedto work. Second, the shortage of water at the firefighting sites was a serious anddangerous problem. This was not because water was needed to extinguish the fires;rather, water needed to be available all the times because while a well was blowing,there was the possibility that it could flash and reignite, injuring or killing everyoneon location. Due to these potential hazards, the most urgent need was a ready sourceof water, as it was impossible for the firefighters to wait for water or to borrowequipment from the next location; hence, everything had to be in place to cap thewell once the fire was out. Accordingly, the less time spent capping the well after thefire was out, the less likely it was that somebody would be hurt.

The serious problem of securing a high-volume supply of water was tackled byutilizing the existing pipelines that carried oil from the gathering centers in theoilfields to the Arabian Gulf. The flow of Kuwait’s oil pipeline was reversed in orderto carry saltwater from the Arabian Gulf back to the oilfields and to fight the fires.

The third concern was the large crude oil lakes that had formed in some oilfields as a result of the persistent well-head damage, and the subsequent release offree-gushing oil into the surrounding areas, which rendered portions of the landinaccessible. The Scorched-Earth tactic released about 156 million barrels of crudeoil into the desert, with an average of 7.8 barrels per m2, forming 399 oil lakes andcovering a surface area of 49.31 km2.

The huge lakes of standing crude oil released large amounts of organic vaporsinto the atmosphere, which carried risks of ground-level fires and pollution of un-derground water. As an environmental priority, sand blockades and elevated roadswere constructed around such lakes, and a system of plastic-lined reservoirs was con-structed to drain and channel the oil flow into storage pits that could be utilizedlater.

The fourth priority was the fact that, adjacent to the nearby Minagish and Umm-Gudair oil fields and along Kuwait’s southern borders, the Iraqi troops had con-structed several “fire trenches” by releasing oil into low-lying areas, for self-protectivereasons. The trenches were roughly 1 km long, 3 m wide, and 3 m deep, in orderto obstruct the forward movement of the Allied Forces (USDD 2000). Althoughthey had little impact on the outcome of the war, these and other burning oil lakes

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eventually hindered the post-war firefighting efforts as they were difficult to extin-guish and made movement around the burning wells even more dangerous.

Risk Management during the Firefighting Operations

To activate the strategic plan, the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) adopted distinc-tive priorities when extinguishing the blazing fires in the different oil fields. Thepriorities were arranged as described in what follows (Al-Damkhi 2005).

First, the oil fields that had direct environmental impacts on human and urbanareas under the smoke cloud were of primary concern. The giant Burgan oil fieldwas the closest to Kuwait City and other residential areas along the coast. Its northernsection, which comprised the Magwa and Ahmadi oil fields, almost adjoined KuwaitInternational Airport, and the Al-Ahmadi community was located at its center. Thus,to protect the residential areas and Kuwait International Airport, the processes ofextinguishing and capping the blazing wells adjacent to these sites were initiallygiven top priority.

Second, priority was also given to protecting the local environment, by controllingboth the flow of the gushing oil wells that formed oil lakes, and the highly-hazardousblazing wells in the southern oil fields, which were considered more dangerous thanthose in the northern oil fields, and were characterized by dense smoke and a highpercentage of hydrogen sulfide (H2S).

The third area of concern was the clearance of roads, in order to ensure safe accessto the sabotaged oil-well sites scattered in different fields. To achieve this goal, prioritywas given to extinguishing and capping the wells adjacent to the service pathwaysand roads.

The fourth priority was rapidly controlling the oil wells, especially those in thegiant Burgan field, in order to safeguard their vast oil reserves. The Burgan oil field,which had about 403 active oil wells of which 346 (about 86%) were sabotaged, wasthe most important in terms of productivity, numbers of wells and fires, and theamount of smoke generated.

Response to the Environmental Atrocities

Shortly after the announcement of the firefighting strategy plan, the internationalcommunity responded widely to address this catastrophic disaster. The concernedauthority in Kuwait started receiving proposals and suggestions from inventors inthe firefighting areas; these totaled more than 1,500 by the end of March 1991(Al-Nashmi 1992). Although some of the proposals were interesting and were wel-comed by oil engineers, most were not implemented as they ignored the futureproductivity of the wells, and were dependent only on the idea of extinguishing thefires.

Meanwhile, at a conference held in Washington, D.C., in early April 1991, manyuseful and practical ideas were debated by multidisciplinary experts, who discussedthe challenges faced by the firefighting teams, and evaluated the effective use ofup-to-date technology to speed the process of extinguishing the fires (Husain 1994).

Implementation of the Latest Firefighting Techniques

The unique nature of Kuwait’s environmental catastrophe urged the firefightingcompanies to quickly develop innovative firefighting techniques and implement the

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latest technologies available, in order to shorten the duration of the operations. Oneof the notable devices used was an “abrasive jet cutter,” which was employed to cutdown through the surface tubing of a burning well, leaving a clean hole that wasfar easier to cap, thereby starving the fire of oxygen. The time required for cuttingand removing the wreckage did not exceed 3 h compared with 3 days for traditionalmethods (Bou-Yabis 1992).

One of the more unconventional techniques used, which amazed the other teamsin Kuwait, was the deployment of Soviet ex-Mig-21 turbine engines that were reversedand mounted onto an old Soviet T-35 tank. The technique, which was developed atthe University of Budapest, Hungary, had been used successfully for 8 years beforeit was employed in Kuwait (Al-Nashmi 1992). The approach, which was called the“Turbo Dragon” and was characterized by its red color, was operated by five armycrew members who drove the tank and ran the engines at a speed of 960 km/h.When the engines were turned on, water hoses were connected to the turbines,which were each fitted with three water guns. One crew member standing nextto the tank operated two pointing devices in a box, in order to adjust the guns.When the guns were positioned at a distance of 8 m from the burning well, theair sucked into the engines pushed water through the guns and into the fire, witheach turbine pumping 8–15 m3 of water per min. The innovative technique, whichusually took 12–120 s to extinguish the fire, proved to be popular, simple, and ef-fective compared with the conventional method, which involved several hours ofjetting water onto glowing molten coke with high temperatures around the wellhead

Growth of the Firefighting Teams

Due to the slow rate of progress in the firefighting operation, Kuwait’s govern-ment had re-evaluated the blazing fires, and determined that additional supportwould be required urgently. The reason behind the decision to increase the numberof teams was a vital environmental issue, as slow progress in extinguishing the fireswould have had distinct impacts on residential areas during August and September.If firefighting delays had been encountered during those two months, air pollutionproblems in all areas—especially those with high levels of sulfur dioxide (SO2) andparticulates—would have been worsened due to the calm winds and temperatureinversions that characterize Kuwait’s summer season. By the first week of August, fire-fighting teams from Iran, China, Hungary, Romania, France, the U.K., and Russia(the U.S.S.R.) had joined the firefighting operation. By October 10,1991, the fire-fighters had capped 566 of the 755 sabotaged wells in Kuwait.

The greatest firefighting operation that the world has ever seen was completedon November 6, 1991. The total numbers of teams, firefighters, wells controlled,working days, and average control days per well for each country that participatedin extinguishing Kuwait’s fires are shown in Table 1. The United States, which wasinvolved from the beginning, capped 399 wells using 12 teams from 5 different com-panies, whereas Canada capped 194 wells using 6 teams from 3 different companies.Safety Boss from Canada was the team with the most “kills,” with a total of 176 firesextinguished.

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Table 1. The total number of teams, firefighters, wells controlled, working days,and average control days per well for each country participating inextinguishing Kuwait’s fires.

Country Total no.of teams

Total no.of firefighters

Total no. ofwells controlled

Total no. ofworking days

Average control(Days/Well)

USA 12 62 399 802 2.01CANADA 6 40 194 275 1.42KUWAIT 1 13 41 54 1.32IRAN 1 6 19 86 4.53CHINA 1 9 11 66 6.00HUNGARY 1 23 9 37 4.11FRANCE 2 10 8 27 3.38UK∗ 1 NA 6 19 3.17ROMANIA 1 NA 6 24 4.00RUSSIA∗∗ 1 NA 4 13 3.25Total 27 – 697 1403 3.32

∗Represented by the Kuwait British Fire Group who had hired the American Neal Adamsfirefighting company.∗∗The team represented the U.S.S.R. before it was dissolved in late August 1991.

Birth of a New Kuwaiti Firefighting Team

It was regrettable that companies from nine different nations were participatingin the Olympic firefighting operation without a team from Kuwait, the country thathad witnessed this unique environmental disaster. This moral motivation prompteda Kuwaiti team to be established, which joined the firefighting operation in mid-September 1991 under the name “Kuwait Wild Well Killers” (KWWK). The control oftwo Burgan oil wells, (BG-160) and (BG-296), highlighted their success and securedthe recognition of the Kuwaiti team as an internationally qualified firefighting team.

Provision of Logistic Services

The two major problems faced by the first firefighting teams in Kuwait were lackof water (as discussed earlier) and lack of equipment. To address the latter issue,huge amounts of equipment and resources were needed for the firefighting to beginseriously. More than 145,000 tons of basic firefighting equipment was transportedfor that purpose (Al-Damkhi 2005). All of the construction and logistical supportfor extinguishing the oil fires were provided, and the initial responsibility for coor-dinating the multiple firefighting teams was organized. Extinguishing oil-well firesis a hazardous occupation with many obvious risks to humans, the environment, andthe expensive equipment involved. Therefore, safety precautions were strictly per-formed and health care was carefully supervised for all involved personnel. A newlyinstalled communication network facilitated movements in and around the differ-ent oil fields. To control the 755 sabotaged oil wells, around 11,450 workers from38 countries and firefighting crews from 10 countries worked day and night underthe most primitive of conditions. This led, in the end, to the job being performedas quickly, accurately, and, most of all, safely as possible.

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CONCLUSIONS

Most predictions and scenarios assumed that the efforts and operations to extin-guish Kuwait’s fires and cap the wells would take 2–5 years to be completed. However,the strategic emergency plan, the environmentally-sound management of risks andfirefighting operations, and the effectively-organized logistics infrastructure com-bined to mitigate the potentially devastating adverse environmental impacts. Thefire was thus brought under control after exactly 7 months and 25 days of fast, rig-orous, and pioneering around-the-clock work, which utilized most of the specialistequipment and newly developed techniques available worldwide. The issues adoptedin the strategic emergency plan were addressed with notably high success in differentoil fields. The intention to reduce the expected sabotage losses from US$43 billionto only US$12.5 billion, as stated in the strategy, was achieved with a high degreeof credibility. The added revenue to the country was believed to increase by 70%,and the firefighting expenses decreased to a maximum of just 1% of the predictedlosses, which had been announced immediately after the catastrophe as US$120million/day or US$5 million/h.

The Scorched-Earth tactic applied in Kuwait, and the resulting environmentaldisaster, led to a positive reaction by the international community, and led to a newenvironmental treaty at the regional level. At the international level, the settingup of a special fund dedicated to financial involvement in cases of emergency wassuggested by the former U.S.S.R. President Mikhail Gorbachev, to ensure that futureenvironmental concerns will receive the immediate attention that they need. This“Emergency Fund,” financed by nations, companies, and foundations, was intendedto be created before future catastrophes occur, so that the money will be availableimmediately. At the regional level, Kuwait’s environmental disaster has stimulatedArabian Gulf policymakers to pay closer attention to the potential economic andenvironmental consequences of conflicts that might arise in their region.

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Al-Ameeri R. 1992. A personal meeting with Dr. Rasheed Al-Ameeri (the Kuwaiti ex-Ministerof oil who announced the firefighting strategy plan after Kuwait’s liberation), September1992.

Al-Damkhi A. 1992. INVASION: Saddam Hussain’s Reign of Terror in Kuwait. Kuwait Researchand Advertising Co. Ltd, London, UK

Al-Damkhi A. 2005. For The History: The Catastrophe of Destruction and The Miracle ofReconstruction in Kuwait’s Oil Sector. CRM Publisher, Canada

Al-Nashmi S. 1992. A personal meeting with Mr. Saud Al-Nashmi (One of the Kuwaiti KPC ex-ecutives in exile who participated in negotiations with the Big Four firefighting companies,and the technical coordinator of Kuwait’s firefighting for 8 months), August 1992.

Bechtel. 1991. A Report issued by the Consultant and the Technical Partner of Kuwait OilCompany (KOC) [Report No. WBC-405/21206, last updated: November 7, 1991].

Bou-Yabis I. 1992. A personal meeting with Mr. Issa Bou-Yabis (the team leader of Kuwait WildWell Killers, KWWK, whose team participated in fighting Kuwait’s Fires), August 1992

Doyle L. 2004. Red Adair, “hellfighting” oil fire hero, dies at 89. The Independent, PublishedAugust, 2004. Available at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi qn4158/is 200408/ai n12801657 [Access Date: May 3, 2005]

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