Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

A series of measurements were made in the Al Mawqá/Al Ahmadi oil field region of Kuwait to explore the feasibility of assessing the heat release rate of individual well fires through flame height and thermal radiation measurements. The heat release rate (Q in kW) of the crude oil well fires was correlated with the flame height (2, in meters) using Q = (Z/0.21)5/2. The 12 Kuwait oil field fires measured ranged in calculated heat release rate from 90 MW to 2 GW which correspond to flow rates of 0.003 m³/s (1500 bbls/day) to 0.059 m³/s (30000 bbls/day). Based on these twelve burning well 1 measurements, the estimated total flow from the 651 damaged wells, both burning and leaking in March, 1991, was 14 m³/s (7,400,000 bbls/day) which is only 20 percent greater than published National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates based on information from the Kuwait Oil Company.