Massive Indian oil well fire extinguished
A fire that blazed for three weeks at an oil well in India’s remote north-east has been put out.
Fire experts from the Houston, Texas-based, Boots & Coots International Well Control, which specialises in extinguishing oil well fires, directed the efforts of nearly 600 firefighters trying to contain the blaze.
“The battle was tough because the fire was very big, there was a lot of oil at the site and logistics posed a huge problem because of the remoteness,” said Bradley Hendrix, who led the Boots & Coots team of experts at the blaze.
The oil well at Dikom, operated by state-owned Oil India, caught fire on September 14, with flames shooting up to 50 feet in the air.
Following the fire, Oil India shut down another 30 wells at the Dikom oil field, 345 miles east of Gauhati, the capital of India’s Assam state. The closure is estimated to have caused losses of 9,000 barrels of crude a day for several weeks.
Authorities had also evacuated 5,000 residents from villages and a tea estate in the area last week.
There were no casualties.
