thumb|upright=1.6|smoke plumes from a few of the kuwaiti oil fires on april 7, 1991. the plume boundaries/the maximum assumed extent of the combined plumes from over six hundred fires during the period of february 15 - may 30, 1991, are available. the kuwaiti oil fires were caused by iraqi military forces setting fire to a reported 605 to 732 oil wells along with an unspecified number of oil filled low-lying areas, such as "oil lakes" and "fire trenches", as part of a scorched earth policy while retreating from kuwait in 1991 due to the advances of coalition military forces in the persian gulf war. the fires were started in january and february 1991, and the first well fires were extinguished in early april 1991, with the last well capped on november 6, 1991. ==motives== by the eve of the iraqi invasion, kuwait had set production quotas to almost , which coincided with a sharp drop in the price of oil. by the summer of 1990, kuwaiti overproduction had become a serious point of contention with iraq. some analysts have speculated that one of saddam hussein's main motivations in invading kuwait was to punish the ruling al-sabah family in kuwait for not stopping its policy of overproduction, as well as his reasoning behind the destruction of said wells. it is also hypothesized that iraq decided to destroy the oil fields to achieve a military advantage, believing the intense smoke plumes serving as smoke screens created by the burning oil wells would inhibit coalition offensive air strikes, foil allied "smart" weapons and spy satellites, and could screen iraqâs military movements. furthermore, it is thought that iraqâs military leaders may have regarded the heat, smoke, and debris from hundreds of burning oil wells as pr
1991_disasters 1991_in_Kuwait 1991_in_the_environment Aftermath_of_the_Gulf_War Environmental_disasters Environmental_disasters_in_Asia Environmental_issues_with_war Fires_in_Kuwait Industrial_fires_and_explosions