[rustbucket]

Classic use of the word “and” to make something seem worse than it is. The narrator says “flames and smoke reached nearly 800 feet in the air.” That could mean flames were 100 feet in the air and smoke was another 700 feet above that. No way to tell how high those flames were, as there was nothing in the footage for scale.

Being a gas fire, there was essentially no visible smoke, just flame. I've seen various figures reported for the height of the Devil's Cigarette Lighter flames: 450 feet, 700 feet, 800 feet.

Red Adair, who put the fire out, reported flames of 700 feet in his film of the blowout. Red Adair's Film of Devil's Cigarette Lighter, Part 1 of 4.

In the film, the flames look quite high in pictures taken one mile or more from the well. However high it was, it was one monster blowout that reportedly melted sand a half mile from the well.

[BagCamAddict]

Thanks. Understood.

Just trying to point out that the use of the word “and” makes it impossible to tell what A or B really is. Like the pet food recall deaths... when reporters say 10,000 pets have been killed or made sick, it’s impossible to know whether the means 1 dead and 9,999 sick or the other way around.

When the oil well fires were burning in Iraq & Kuwait, I had a friend who was griping about “the Bush administration” awarding no-bid contracts to put out those fires. I had to tell him there are only about 4 companies in the WORLD who have the expertise and equipment and manpower to do that work.