FIVE-TON STEEL CAP USED TO SNUFF OUT BURNING OIL WELL

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6864, 20 March 1929, Page 5

FIVE-TON STEEL CAP USED TO SNUFF OUT BURNING OIL WELL

A five-ton steep cap, like a giant candle-snuffer, was used recently to put out a burning oil-well near Los Angeles, we are told by John E. Lodge, writing in “Popular Science Monthly' ’ (New York February). He says:— “Whatever its cause, a flaming pillar of oil, hot enough, to melt a derrick’s steel, is not a pretty thing to put out. Yet engineers have dared to attack these fires, with sensational success. One of their recent triumphs, oddly enough, has been just half a mile from the scene of the latest oil fire, where a novel system of putting out an oil blaze received a spectacular demonstration. For eight weeks a freak fire raged about what had once been the derrick of Getty No. 13, in the Santa Fe Springs field. Dense smoke billowed from the flood of seething, flaming oil, while above roared a smokeless jet of fiery gas. Advancing behind steel shields, to screen them from the heat, firefighters approached the terrfic blaze After a brief perspiring survey, they decided to try a desperate experiment—to snuff it out, like a giant candle. “First, a sappivg project remiscent of those of the World War was carried out. Under cover of the shields, tunnellers burrowed into the earth and dug an underground shaft two hundred feet long to pierce the main casing Through it, sixty feet beneath the ground, quantities of gas and oil were diverted and the force of the burning jet diminished enough for the daring attempt. . “To snuff out the ‘candle,’ the men chose a five-ton cap of steel that looks like an inverted funnel: Its top is a stack with a huge valve, while at the wide-mouthed base is another pipe, with •"a valve, to lead off unburned oil. “Tractors and a daring crew popped this cap over the burning well. Instantly the funnel stack became a flamespouting chimney. A turn of the valve wheel in the stack, and the flames went out —the pipe was and the fire smothered. A hoarse command, and a valve on the lower pipe was opened in ( time to save the whole five-ton tap from being blown off by the accumulated pressure. Harmless oil poured out into a pit. The fire was out! “Often nitroglycerin is used by the asbestos-clad men who extinguish oilwell fires. Charges of explosives are dropped into the blaze and exploded, literally blowing the fire out.”