Kuwait City, Kuwait; March 1991. Oil well fires in the Kuwaiti desert that were burning out of control during the 1991 Gulf War helped create the strange mood of this photograph of the Kuwaiti Towers. The toxic smoke covered the noontime sun and converted day to night. The oil fields were set on fire by retreating Iraqi troops hoping to create some cover from American airplanes strafing their positions. The fires and smoke caused one of the greatest environmental disasters of modern times. Nearly 800 oil wells were set ablaze by the retreating Iraqi army and the fires were not fully extinguished until November 6, 1991, eight months after the end of the war. The fires consumed an estimated six million barrels of oil daily. Their immediate consequence was a dramatic decrease in air quality, causing respiratory problems for many Kuwaitis. The sabotage of the oil wells also impacted the desert environment, which has a limited natural cleansing ability. Un-ignited oil from the wells formed about 300 oil lakes that contaminated around 40 million tons of sand and earth.
