"Natural, but their contract was terminated in 2007 by the Algerian state oil company Sonatrach, which elected to pursue the project on its own. On November 6, 1961 a gas well fire broke out at Gassi Touil, becoming known as the Devil's Cigarette Lighter. It was finally extinguished on April 28, 1962 by well fire specialist Red Adair. The field also produces oil, first discovered in 1961, from 38 wells as of 2008. Gassi Touil Gassi Touil is a large natural gas field in the Sahara Desert region of Grand Erg Oriental of Algeria, within the commune of Hassi Messaoud."
"""Hellfighters"" was loosely based upon the feats of Adair during the 1962 Sahara Desert fire. Devil's Cigarette Lighter The Devil's Cigarette Lighter was a natural gas well fire at Gassi Touil in the Sahara Desert of Algeria. Ignited when a pipe ruptured on November 6, 1961, the Phillips Petroleum Company-owned well produced more than of natural gas per second, whose flame rose between and . The flame was seen from orbit by John Glenn during the flight of ""Friendship 7"" on February 20, 1962. The blowout and fire were estimated to have consumed enough gas to supply Paris for three"
"Devil's Cigarette Lighter The Devil's Cigarette Lighter was a natural gas well fire at Gassi Touil in the Sahara Desert of Algeria. Ignited when a pipe ruptured on November 6, 1961, the Phillips Petroleum Company-owned well produced more than of natural gas per second, whose flame rose between and . The flame was seen from orbit by John Glenn during the flight of ""Friendship 7"" on February 20, 1962. The blowout and fire were estimated to have consumed enough gas to supply Paris for three months, burning per day. After burning almost six months, the fire was extinguished by well"
"became a radio writer for the BBC as well as a published military historian. The premise of this episode was inspired by the ""Devil's Cigarette Lighter"", a gas well fire that burned for six months between 1961 and 1962 until it was finally extinguished by detonating a nitroglycerin charge at its epicentre to dispel the surrounding oxygen. The character of Jason Smith was based on Red Adair, the oil well firefighter who put out the Devil's Cigarette Lighter (who, like Smith, was Texan), and Smith's tractor on the adapted bulldozer that Adair used to deliver the charge. The Rig 15"
"all types of wildfires. The fire with the most line-of-duty smokejumper deaths was the Mann Gulch fire in 1949, which occurred north of Helena, Montana, at the Gates of the Mountains area along the Missouri River. Thirteen firefighters died during the blowup, 12 of them smokejumpers. This disaster directly led to the establishment of modern safety standards used by all wildland firefighters. Noted author Norman MacLean described the incident in ""Young Men and Fire"" (1992). Despite the seemingly dangerous nature of the job, fatalities from jumping are infrequent, the best-known fatalities in the United States being those that occurred at"
"his life sentence at California State Prison, Centinela. Some arson investigators and an FBI criminal profiler have deemed Orr to be possibly one of the worst American serial arsonists of the twentieth century. Federal ATF agent Mike Matassa believes that Orr set nearly 2,000 fires between 1984 and 1991. Furthermore, arson investigators determined that after Orr was arrested, the number of brush fires in the nearby foothill areas decreased by over ninety percent. Orr's story was chronicled by bestselling true crime author Joseph Wambaugh in a book titled ""Fire Lover"". On several occasions, film and television have also presented the"
"oil wells that could subsequently burn for several months. As threatened, the wells were set on fire by the retreating Iraqis in March 1991, and the 600 or so burning oil wells were not fully extinguished until November 6, 1991, eight months after the end of the war, and they consumed an estimated six million barrels of oil per day at their peak intensity. When Operation Desert Storm begun in January 1991, coinciding with the first few oil fires being lit, Dr. S. Fred Singer and Carl Sagan discussed the possible environmental effects of the Kuwaiti petroleum fires on the"
"mostly by smoke inhalation. Of these, 27 were hospitalized One firefighter (Battalion Chief Gunther E. Beake) was severely affected by smoke inhalation and died of his injuries on August 23, 1949. The truck carrying carbon disulfide was completely destroyed, as were nine other trucks. 13 trucks were damaged. The infrastructure suffered extensive damage: approximately 650 short tons (590 tonnes) of rubble were removed during the weekend before the tunnel reopened. The tiles on the tunnel walls spalled off for a distance of approximately 200 feet (60 m) west of the fire site and 500 feet (150 m) east of it."
"Mann Gulch fire The Mann Gulch fire was a wildfire reported on August 5, 1949 in a gulch located along the upper Missouri River in the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness (then known as the Gates of the Mountains Wild Area), Helena National Forest, in the state of Montana in the United States. A team of 15 US Forest Service smokejumpers parachuted into the area on the afternoon of August 5, 1949 to fight a 50-60 acre (20-24 hectare) lightning caused blaze, assisted by a local recreation guard. As the team approached the fire, an unexpected change in wind direction"
"have his bodyguards stay the night when he slept in Monaco"". Ted Maher, a former Green Beret who was Safra's bodyguard and nurse, was accused of starting the fire. His lawyer, Michael Griffith, has said that Maher started the fire in order to gain acceptance from Safra and that ""It was a stupid, most insane thing a human being could do. He did not intend to kill Mr. Safra. He just wanted Mr. Safra to appreciate him more. He loved Mr. Safra. This was the best job of his life."" Maher was convicted and sentenced to eight years in jail."
"ground crew and attack the fire at the Mann Gulch/Meriwether ridge. The temperature at Helena, 25 miles to the south, was reaching 97 °F (36 °C), the hottest day on record to date. The fire danger rating was calculated at 74 out of 100: ""explosive stage"". 3:10 pm – C-47 pilot Kenneth Huber located the fire in Mann Gulch and began to circle. Spotter and jumpmaster Earl Cooley and crew foreman R. Wagner Dodge appraised the fire. They observed that since 4 August, the lightning caused blaze had scorched 50 to 60 acres, originating in Mann Gulch and spreading upslope"
"to combustion would last 11 days at modern usage rates. On March 21, 1991, a Royal Saudi Air Force C-130H crashed in heavy smoke due to the Kuwaiti oil fires on approach to Ras Mishab Airport, Saudi Arabia. 92 Senegalese soldiers and 6 Saudi crew members were killed, the largest accident among Coalition forces. The smoke screening was also used by Iraqi anti-armor forces to a successful extent in the Battle of Phase Line Bullet, having aided in achieving the element of surprise against advancing Bradley (IFV)s, along with increasing the general fog of war. The fires burned out of"
"of an aboriginal American man who badly burned his foot and leg in lava or hot ash while hunting for deer. The likely apocryphal story went that the injured man sought treatment at Fort Vancouver, but the contemporary fort commissary steward, Napoleon McGilvery, disclaimed knowledge of the incident. British lieutenant Henry J. Warre sketched the eruption in 1845, and two years later Canadian painter Paul Kane created watercolors of the gently smoking mountain. Warre's work showed erupting material from a vent about a third of the way down from the summit on the mountain's west or northwest side (possibly at"
"Rattlesnake Fire The Rattlesnake Fire was a wildfire started by an arsonist on July 9, 1953, in Grindstone Canyon on the Mendocino National Forest in northern California. The wildfire killed one Forest Service employee and 14 volunteer firefighters from the New Tribes Mission, and burned over before it was controlled on July 11, 1953. It became and remains to this day a well-known firefighting textbook case on fatal wildland fires. The arsonist, Stanford Pattan, started two fires, one on private land and the other along Alder Springs Road inside the national forest boundary. He was later convicted and sentenced on"
"temperatures as a result of if the Iraqis went through with their threats of igniting 300 to 500 pressurized oil wells and they burned for a few months. Later when Operation Desert Storm had begun, Dr. S. Fred Singer and Carl Sagan discussed the possible environmental impacts of the Kuwaiti petroleum fires on the ABC News program ""Nightline"". Sagan again argued that some of the effects of the smoke could be similar to the effects of a nuclear winter, with smoke lofting into the stratosphere, a region of the atmosphere beginning around above sea level at Kuwait, resulting in global"
"the smokejumpers that day is on exhibit in Missoula at the Museum of Mountain Flying. The aircraft was restored and now serves as a memorial to the Smokejumpers and the Fire Guard that lost their lives at Mann Gulch on August 5, 1949. Four hundred fifty men fought for five more days to get the fire under control, which had spread to 4,500 acres (1,800 ha). Wagner Dodge survived unharmed and died five years later of Hodgkin's disease. Thirteen crosses were erected to mark the locations where the thirteen firefighters who died fighting the Mann Gulch fire fell. However, one"
"by smoke and heat Fireman Joseph C. Nagle, ""despite the blinding smoke and flames, rushed into the building and carried Chief Harrigan outside,"" suffering burns and smoke inhalation in the process. Nagle was brought to the Dedham Emergency Hospital, and a firefighter worked on Harrigan with a pulmanator before he was taken to the Faulkner Hospital by several police officers in an ambulance. Harrigan, a 47-year veteran of the force, died slightly after 4 a.m., leaving behind a wife and four daughters. A plaque was unveiled in his honor outside the main firehouse on the 75th anniversary of his death,"
"in remote, inaccessible mountains where firefighting was difficult, hazardous and time-consuming. They burnt more than 150,000 ha with a perimeter in excess of 1,000 km before they were brought under control. At its peak more than 3,000 people were on fire fronts or support roles including 2,000 from CFL, 500 CFA volunteers, 449 Armed Services personnel, 120 sawmill employees and 50 State Electricity Commission employees. Major equipment used included 75 bulldozers, 400 tankers, 20 helicopters and 16 fixed-wing aircraft. Following the initial turmoil of amalgamation, CFL enjoyed a period of relative stability and consolidation over the next seven years until"
"times, each time sending tongues of flame thousands of feet into the sky and creating a rolling wave of fire that destroyed anything and everything in its path. At least 78 firefighters were killed while trying to control the fire. The entire 28-man ""Lost Crew"" was overcome by flames and perished on Setzer Creek outside of Avery, Idaho. Perhaps the most famous story of survival is that of Ed Pulaski, a U.S. Forest Service ranger who led a large crew to safety in an abandoned prospect mine outside of Wallace, Idaho, just as they were about to be overtaken by"
"Bel Air Fire The Bel Air Fire was a disaster that began as a brush fire on November 5, 1961 in the Bel Air community of Los Angeles. 484 homes were destroyed and were burned. The fire was fueled by strong Santa Ana winds. There were multiple celebrities affected by the fire. Actors Burt Lancaster, Joan Fontaine, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, comedian Joe E. Brown, Nobel laureate chemist Willard Libby and composer Lukas Foss lost homes in the fire. Others that fought flames before they evacuated were former Vice President Richard Nixon, actor Robert Taylor, film producer Keith Daniels and"
"by exploding 55-gallon drums and disabling smoke. Local hospitals treated 43 firefighters for injuries sustained during the fire. The immediate effects of exposure to the toxic fumes included raw, burning throats; vomiting; a quickly forming red, itchy rash; and seared eyes and nasal passages. Over 200 first responders including firemen, police and paramedics were exposed to the toxic fumes. First responders to the fire experienced many health problems in subsequent years including several deaths from rare cancers. Cancer rates of firemen at the fire or cleanup were five to six times the norm. In 1980, Melvin Wade was convicted of"
"father, Robert Fiske Griggs. David T. Griggs David Tressel Griggs (6 October 1911 – 31 December 1974) was an American geophysicist. He served as the second Chief Scientist of the U.S. Air Force from 1951 to 1952. David Griggs was born in Columbus, Ohio. His father was Robert Fiske Griggs, who discovered the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes near Mount Katmai in Alaska. The highest area in this area was officially named Mount Griggs in his honor. David accompanied his father on an expedition to that area in 1930. At age 24, Griggs had an accident while mountain climbing in"
"continued about an hour and a half hours till one artillery shot exploded fire near the crater he was leading the battle from. As a result of the fragments and the deadly vacuum Riad died of his wounds after 32 years spent working in the army. After his death, President Gamal Abdel Nasser granted him the rank of first star honors military which is the largest military decoration in Egypt, and 9 March of each year was considered the day to commemorate his memory. His name was given to one of the most famous squares in Egypt and to a"
"army. Akbar was the lone woman on a rogue team of petroleum engineers who acted against orders to take on the dangerous task of dousing oil well fires. She believes it was her familiarity with the wells that allowed her team to be successful: ""I worked on the oilfields, offshore and onshore, day and night, and the result of this work was that I knew the oilfields very well... There were 800 wells and I knew every single one like the back of my hand."" Their efforts were later shown in ""Fires of Kuwait"", a 1992 documentary that was nominated"
"after burning for 102 minutes. On September 23, 2001 ""BBC News"" reported that al-Shehri was ""alive and well"" in Casablanca, Morocco, and was talking to multiple media organizations; however, due to confusion over the man's identity, and editorial concerns over conspiracy theories, ""BBC News"" later modified the September 23 report by inserting ""A man called ... "" ""BBC News"" considers the September 23 report superseded by an October 5, 2001 report that lists Waleed as one of the alleged hijackers believed by the FBI to be responsible for the September 11 attacks. Waleed and Wail were both reported to have"
"blocked firefighters from launching a rescue attempt until long after Maher was rushed to a hospital. Lawyers for Safra's widow, Lily, argued that Maher should be judged for his actions, not his intentions. In December 2002 Maher was convicted in the arson deaths of Edmond Safra and Vivian Torrente and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The prosecution had requested 12 years in prison for Maher. The charges carried a maximum penalty of life in prison. ""He directly caused the deaths of Mrs. Torrente and Mr. Safra"", said head prosecutor Daniel Serdet. ""He trapped the victims."" On the final day"
"inaccessible mountain country where firefighting was difficult, hazardous and slow. One hundred and eleven fires started on the afternoon on 14 January 1985 and burnt more than 150,000 ha with a perimeter in excess of 1,000 km before they were brought under control after about two weeks. About one-third of the perimeter had to be established and held in steep mountain country where there was no conventional vehicle access. At the peak of the campaign more than 3,000 people were directly deployed on fire fronts or in close support, including 2,000 from the Department of Conservation Forests and Lands (CFL),"
"around and hiked the 28 miles back to camp. (Bushey). After the service set up the smokejumpers, Cooley began training other young men on how to do exactly the same thing he did. He trained men for what the National Service called “10’o clock men”. The idea was that they could have the fire put out by 10’o clock the next morning after being dispatched. (Bramwell) On August 15, 1949, a fire broke out inside of a gulch in Helena National Forest in Montana. The Canyon, which had cliffs that reached 1,250 at times on both sides, made access for"
"fire expert Red Adair, who used explosives to deprive the flame of oxygen. The exploit made Adair a celebrity. Adair worked the fire with Asger ""Boots"" Hansen and Ed ""Coots"" Matthews, who later formed the Boots & Coots well control company. Preparations took five months while Adair's team cleared wreckage from near the wellhead with shielded bulldozers, dug wells, and excavated three reservoirs for water supplies. On April 28, 1962, Adair used a modified bulldozer with a arm to move a metal drum containing a nitroglycerin charge to the well. Adair, Matthews, Hansen and Charlie Tolar rode the rig, protected"
"one kilometre of a forest. Barre faced up to a $1 million fine and three years in prison, but was instead sentenced to pay a $3,000 fine. McLure fire On July 30, 2003, a wildfire was started by a discarded cigarette in the hills behind McClure, British Columbia. The fire burned for 75 days, destroying of forest and 81 structures (72 homes and 9 businesses). The fire cost Can$31.1 million to extinguish and caused another 8.2 million dollars in property damage. 3,800 people were evacuated from the communities of McClure, Barriere and Louis Creek. In 2005, former firefighter Michael Barre"
"wore when exposed to the lava is currently on display at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. George Ulrich (American geologist) George Ulrich is an American geologist and volcanologist. He received his PhD in Geology from the University of Colorado in 1963. On 12 June 1985 while working for the United States Geological Survey as senior geologist of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Ulrich fell through a thin crust of rock and was partially submerged in lava. He was quickly pulled out by a visiting Italian geologist, named Dario Tedesco , but received second and third degree burns on both of his legs."
"died in 2004 at age 89, survived by his wife, a son and a daughter. Red Adair Paul Neal ""Red"" Adair (June 18, 1915 – August 7, 2004) was an American oil well firefighter. He became notable as an innovator in the highly specialized and hazardous profession of extinguishing and capping oil well blowouts, both land-based and offshore. Adair was born in Houston, Texas, the son of an Irish blacksmith, and attended Reagan High School. He began fighting oil well fires after returning from serving in an Army bomb disposal unit during World War II. He started his career working"
"Smoking Hills The Smoking Hills are located on the east coast of Cape Bathurst in Canada's Northwest Territories, next to the Arctic Ocean and a small group of lakes. The cliffs were named by explorer John Franklin, who was the first European to see them on his 1826 expeditions. They contain strata of hydrocarbons (oil shales), which have been burning continuously for centuries. The fires result from autoignition of sulfur-rich lignite deposits. The clouds of smoke have given the region its name. Over time the sulfur dioxide from the smoke has acidified the shallow ponds (< area and < depth)"