A major fire spread to tanks containing tons of fuel in refineries in northern Iraq, leaving 13 injured, some with burns among civil defense rescuers who are still trying to put out the fire Thursday in Autonomous Kurdistan.
The fire, the cause of which remains unknown for the time being, started on Wednesday evening from a “major crude oil reservoir”, before reaching a second neighboring refinery on a road southwest of Erbil, capital of Kurdistan autonomous, according to civil defense.
In the middle of the night, the mobilized firefighters tried to extinguish the flames which caused immense plumes of black smoke, according to an AFP photographer.
Ten rescuers suffered breathing difficulties, while three others, suffering from “burns”, “are being treated in hospital”, announced the governor of Erbil, Omid Khoshnaw, at a press conference.
He reported four fire trucks burned, estimating that the losses suffered by the refinery where the fire started amounted to nearly eight million dollars.
“Until now, we do not know what the causes are,” stressed the governor, estimating that it could be “probably an electrical short circuit”. The main tank that burned contained more than 5,000 tons of fuel, he said.
“The fire started from one refinery before spreading to a second,” Civil Defense had previously announced in a press release, specifying that four fuel tanks burned.
At midday on Thursday, the fire which affected the initial reservoir was still raging, despite the deployment of around thirty rescue teams, who were trying to “prevent the fire from spreading” and “wait for all the fuel in the tank burns,” according to Civil Defense.
With the rise in temperatures in Iraq, the country accustomed to scorching summers has experienced several fires in recent weeks which have affected shopping centers, warehouses and even hospitals.
Iraq is regularly the scene of fires or fatal domestic accidents, often due to non-compliance with safety standards, particularly in the construction and transport sectors.
Despite immense hydrocarbon wealth, the country suffers from decaying infrastructure, ravaged by decades of conflict and poor public management tinged with corruption.
In December 2023, at least 14 people died in a fire affecting a building which housed university accommodation reserved for students and professors in Kurdistan.
Three months earlier, around a hundred people died in a fire which broke out during a wedding in a village hall in Qaraqosh, in northern Iraq.
The second largest exporting country in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Iraq produces on average four million barrels of crude per day.
With its reserves — 145 billion barrels of proven oil reserves — the country could continue to exploit black gold at the same yield for another 96 years, according to the World Bank.
