Tens, if not hundreds, of lakes of spilled oil, some as large as a civic reservoir, dotted the Burgan and Ahmadi oilfields. They were dirty, dangerous, got in the way of firefighting, and worth billions of dollars. They had to be contained, stabilized (i.e., prevented from catching on fire), collected, and refined.
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| Sky or ground? The highly reflective surface of the oil lake makes it hard to tell | ||
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| A little spot of color — flame surrounded by a world turned completely black. | Oil in this lake is held back by a dike, 'dozed up by one of the giant Caterpillar tractors the firefighters favored. |
