On 21 February 1991, Kuwait faced a very difficult situation, never experienced in the history of mankind, in which more than 600 wells were set ablaze simultaneously in different oilfields.

During the Persian Gulf War Iraq had accused Kuwait of slant drilling into Iraq’s Rumaila oil field, and then of overproducing oil beyond OPEC treaty limits, causing a drop in world oil prices.. When Iraqi troops withdrew from Kuwait at the end of the war in early 1991, they set fire to more than 600 oil wells and pools of spilled oil in Kuwait, a parting shot that exacted a significant economic toll on the country's lucrative petroleum industry.

The Kuwait oil fires burned for more than eight months, consuming an estimated five to six million barrels of crude oil and 70 to 100 million cubic meters of natural gas per day. Between late February, when the first fires were ignited, and November 6, when the last fire was extinguished, smoke plumes containing a hazardous mixture of gaseous emissions and particulate matter engulfed a downwind area as large as 150 by 1000 kilometres.

The geography and climate of the Persian Gulf region affected the distribution of the oil well plumes, as well as the severity of their effect on human populations and natural ecosystems. Though Saudi Arabia and Iraq border Kuwait's petroleum fields, the region's strong prevailing northerly winds ensured that relatively tiny Kuwait bore the majority of the fires' ill effects. Uneven heating of the land and sea surfaces created local atmospheric inversions during the summer months that trapped smoke in the lower atmosphere, and occasionally caused the plumes to blanket the Kuwaiti land surface. Violent sandstorms, driven by intense summer winds, mixed sand and dust with the smoke plumes.

The geography and climate of the Persian Gulf region affected the distribution of the oil well plumes, as well as the severity of their effect on human populations and natural ecosystems. Though Saudi Arabia and Iraq border Kuwait's petroleum fields, the region's strong prevailing northerly winds ensured that relatively tiny Kuwait bore the majority of the fires' ill effects. Uneven heating of the land and sea surfaces created local atmospheric inversions during the summer months that trapped smoke in the lower atmosphere, and occasionally caused the plumes to blanket the Kuwaiti land surface. Violent sandstorms, driven by intense summer winds, mixed sand and dust with the smoke plumes.

Kuwait's most productive petroleum reservoir, the greater Al Burqan field, accounted for the majority of the smoke, and for the greatest amount of incinerated oil. Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard set 365 of Al Burqan's approximately 700 wells on fire, and high subsurface pressures kept the fires burning despite heroic firefighting efforts. The Al Burqan fires also presented the greatest risk to human health because of the field's proximity to Kuwait City and the coastal towns where most of Kuwait's approximately two million inhabitants reside.

Saddam Hussein knew the war was over. He could not have Kuwait, so he wasn't about to let anyone else benefit from its riches. Towering infernos burned for seven months. The Gulf was awash in poisonous smoke, soot and ash. Black rain fell. Lakes of oil were created. As NASA wrote, "The sand and gravel on the land's surface combined with oil and soot to form a layer of hardened 'tarcrete' over almost 5 percent of the country's area." Scores of livestock and other animals died from the oily mist, their lungs blackened by the liquid.

The companies hired by the Kuwaitis to extinguish the oilfield fires set by Iraqi forces were faced with complicated desert conditions, a lack of firefighters and appropriate equipment as well as the booby traps and mines that the Iraqis left behind.

On top of that, Kuwaiti officials told firefighters that seismic maps recording the location of producing reserves under the ground were apparently stolen or destroyed by the Iraqi invaders.

The magnitude of the problem was so huge -- more than 500 free-flowing wells were estimated to be ablaze -- that firefighters said it might take up to five years before the last of the infernos is put out. And experts said that the number of oilfield fires, if they include all of the estimated 775 wells in the country, could exceed 1,200. The fear was that Iraqi soldiers in retreat exploded charges that were strapped to gear at additional wellheads, storage tanks and other equipment.

One threat to firefighters during these and other manoeuvres near desert fires was static electricity. "If you're up there soaked in oil and static electricity reignites the well, you're gone," Mr. Matthews said.

Many of the fires in Kuwait were worse than one of the biggest oil well fires in history, which occurred in Algeria in 1961. The fire at that well, which produced 70,000 barrels a day, was so intense that John Glenn observed it while he orbited the earth.

“What you’ve got to do is learn to reach inside yourself for that holy oil that God gave all of us when we were created. You’re going to find that you have a greater inner strength, a greater inner fire, a greater ability to go on than you thought, if only you would stop, not listen to anybody else, and look within yourself.”

Sebastião Salgado’s Kuwait: A Desert on Fire

In January and February 1991, as the United States–led coalition drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein’s troops retaliated with an inferno. As the desperate efforts to contain and extinguish the conflagration progressed, Sebastião Salgado traveled to Kuwait to witness the crisis firsthand.

At some 700 oil wells and an unspecified number of oil-filled low-lying areas, they ignited vast, raging fires, creating one of the worst environmental disasters in living memory.

The conditions were excruciating. The heat was so vicious that Salgado’s smallest lens warped. A journalist and another photographer were killed when a slick ignited as they crossed it.

Sticking close to the firefighters, Salgado braved the danger, stench, pollution, and temperatures to capture the ravaged landscape – the remains of camels, the sand littered with cluster bombs, the flames and smoke blocking out the sunlight and dwarfing the oil-soaked firefighters.

The monochrome pictures first appeared in The New York Times Magazine in June 1991 and were subsequently hailed as one of the photographer’s most captivating – and courageous – bodies of work.

The series was awarded the Oskar Barnack Award, recognising outstanding photography on the relationship between man and the environment. In a grand-scale reproduction, Taschen published a photobook with more than 80 images.

The result is at once a remarkable encounter with one of Salgado’s landmark series and a major document of global geo-political history and environmental awareness.

It serves to remind us, in the photographer’s own words, “that in the brutality of battle another such apocalypse is always just around the corner”.

Smoke Screens

Sebastião Salgado’s Kuwait: A Desert on Fire