Remembering the Kuwait Oil Fires and Jet Edge's Role in Quelling the Disaster In January and February of 1991, Saddam Hussein's retreating troops detonated and set fire to 750 of Kuwait's 900 oil wells, creating a virtual hell on earth as 5 million barrels of oil a day fed the raging infernos and blackened the sky for days on end with choking, poisonous smoke. Experts predicted it would take up to five years for professional firefighting teams to extinguish the fires. If they were left to burn out on their own, the fires might have raged for 100 years. But an international team of 16,000 firefighters and support staff assembled by Bechtel Corporation proved the experts wrong and snuffed the last well fire on Nov. 6, 1991. According to the 1992 documentary film, "Fires of Kuwait," the fire

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