Qayyara fire rages unabated: 30 homes burnt, entire neighborhood evacuated

QAYYARA, Iraq – Firefighters battling a huge blaze at oil wells set alight by retreating Islamic State (ISIS) militants in the town of Qayyara are erecting dirt mounds around the raging fire to stop it from spreading, after they were forced to evacuate an entire neighborhood.

"We have ramped up our efforts to put out this fire by building dirt mounds around the fire. We are doing all we can to put it out,” said a firefighter who said his team had been called in to Qayyara in Nineveh province from Salahadin.

Another fire chief at the site told Rudaw that Iraq’s North Oil Company in Kirkuk had been called upon to help control the blaze, which has been burning since the Iraqi Army liberated Qayyara last week, ending a brutal two-year occupation.

An entire neighborhood has been evacuated because of the fire, as hapless residents cope with the disaster left behind by the militants, the Rudaw reporter said. At least 30 houses have been completely burned down.

A thick cloud of smoke from the fires hangs over the town, where alleys are covered with thick, burning crude.

Our reporter said that residents – with faces blackened by the smoke -- are exhausted after more than a week of enduring the flames and fumes.