Engineers and oil workers understand the urgency and the importance of drowning out the fire. Pressure to quickly resolve the situation came all the way from Baghdad. "We received the order from the Ministry of Oil, we need to extinguish the flames in one week," said Basheer Murad, senior chief of the Nineveh Oil Fields. His optimistic view contradicted one of the other engineers on site, Ayad Aljaburi, who said the operation might take up to one month. In the past two months they were only able to douse six fiery wells.





To further complicate the situation, ISIS placed IEDs around some of the other wells. "American engineers inspected several sites and told us to be careful, we will have to wait before approaching them," added Aljaburi. The current focus was a specific well on the outskirts of Qayyara, right in the middle of a residential neighborhood.





The latest operation began when a generator was brought on site. In the area there is no electricity-- powerlines have been cut south of Mosul. As soon as firefighters started pumping water from nearby pools, the flames intensified and the smoke became thicker. As the inferno expanded, workers struggled to contain it by using dirt walls pushed by bulldozers. The temperature rose so high that the windshield of the vehicles had to be sprayed with water to stop them from melting. Firefighters operated from home-made metallic cubicles in an attempt to protect themselves.





More than 150 inhabitants gathered around the scene, worried about their nearby homes. The burning oil had already spilled over to at least twenty other houses, turning them into blackened hollow shells. The onlookers were covered with a thick layer of soot. Some protected their faces with worn-out cotton masks. Most didn't seem to mind the toxic gas, as if they had grown used to the polluted air.





A group of at least 30 children were staring at the flames. In the days before, they had been playing around here, regardless of the danger and the warnings by the oil workers. But today was different, and everybody was eager to help even when their assistance was not needed.