Categories
50s to 90s Interesting

The Burgan Blowout, Fire at Well #331 – 1964

Four years ago I posted about the Burgan Blowout, an incident that took place back in 1964 and is now long forgotten. The Burgan Blowout was the largest oil well fire in Kuwait before the 1990 invasion. It took six weeks to extinguish and for that short period of time, was the biggest touristic attraction in Kuwait. Since I originally posted about the event I’ve now come across a lot more photos so I’m reposting the story again with a bit more details as well as the new photos.

The explosion took place at Burgan oil well No. 331 on December 29th, 1964. The gas was ignited by a spark as a worker tried to control a sudden upsurge of mud. Once work started on putting out the fire, it became the biggest tourist attraction in Kuwait. So, a plan was put into place to let the public come and see it, but in a controlled manner, so that it was safe and so that no one got in the way.

Once you got to Burgan you followed in a convoy to a designated parking area a safe distance from the fire. You’d then would walk the remaining way towards the viewing grandstands that were set up for the public. According to a reader (John Beresford) who was 10 years old at the time, as they drove towards the oil well, they could hear a moan that kept getting louder and louder. The force of the gas coming up was so powerful it was causing the ground to vibrate, and this was from quite a distance from the well. It was winter but the heat coming off the fire was so strong that the climate was getting warmer as they walked towards the viewing area. The sound was also getting louder to the point where they had to speak more loudly, almost shouting at each other. By the time they reached the viewing area the temperature had increased to a level that was unpleasant causing the skin facing the flames to get quite warm.

A couple of days after the fire started the famous American oil well firefighter Red Adair was called in to help. Adair became notable internationally as an innovator in the specialized and hazardous profession of extinguishing oil well blowouts. Amazingly, at the age of 75, Adair was called again 26 years later to help extinguish the 1991 oil well fires set by retreating Iraqi troops after the Gulf War.

The first image is from the @trmkuwait family archive, the second was taken by the John’s parents, and the remaining black and white photos were provided by @badshaiji

Interesting tidbit, the photo above is of Red Adair (left) and his fellow fire fighter lieutenant Coots Matthews (right). Coots formed his own competing company in 1978 called Boots & Coots. Combined, Red Adair Co. and Boots & Coots were responsible for extinguishing more than a third of the 700 oil well fires set by the retreating Iraqi soldiers in the Gulf War.

2 replies on “The Burgan Blowout, Fire at Well #331 – 1964”

There’s a 4D show called “Heroes Of Fire” at the Ahmad Al Jaber Exhibition. I worked on commissioning this project and the show is amazing, it features impressive real fire and 4D effects. I’m not sure if it still fully functional, because that was almost 8 years ago. Someone filmed the show and have it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/d0JwKvIYODE?si=-fvswgG3Yzw0I8RL.
If you haven’t visited the exhibition yet, I highly recommend it. It’s an enjoyable experience that you wouldn’t want to miss.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *