For five days in a row, Kuwait firefighters attempted without success to kill an oil well fire in the Rumaila field placed by retreating Iraqi troops. The Rumaila field is one of Iraq's biggest oil fields with five billion barrels in reserve. Many of the wells are 10,000 feet deep and produce huge volumes of oil and gas under tremendous pressure, which makes capping them very difficult and dangerous. Rumaila is also spelled Rumeilah.
