Kuwaiti oil Fires
.
What
Somewhere around 700 oil wells were set on fire.
When
January of 1991- November of 1991
Where
Kuwait
Why
The Kuwaiti Oil Fires were started because of the Iraqi military who had just taken over Kuwait but were now being driven back out so they lit the somewhere around 700 oil wells as revenge.
After They Were Started
It was too dangerous too send in fire fighters because landmines had been placed around the oil wells. Also, fire crews were not sure how to put out such huge oil fires. So the area had to be cleaned of the land mines and specialty companies had to be hired. After about 10 months and 1.5 Billion Dollars the fires were put out
How They Effected The Environment
Each day the fires burned, somewhere around 6 million barrels of oil were burned up into the environment, so as you can imagine, it was hard on the environment. Pollution to the soil and air was caused. There were days when other nearby countries had smoke filled sky's and ash and soot would fall from the sky. A lot of the soldiers fighting in Kuwaiti suffered sicknesses from the smoke filled air that they were breathing..