Stopping a 1,074 Day Fire with a Nuclear Bomb - YouTube

This footage shows a column of fire  shooting up from a gas well in Uzbekistan.  

The blaze ignited due to a  leak and lasted 1,074 days.

The Soviets tried everything to turn off or divert  the well, but these efforts only provoked new,  

smaller blowouts in different locations. It  seemed that nothing could stop the raging fire.

That is until the Soviets decided to take an  unconventional approach… to nuke the well.

Atoms for Peace

Nuclear bombs are commonly thought  of as only serving one purpose,  

to cause mass destruction. Yet, in  the 1960s, both world superpowers  

conducted several tests that considered  alternative, peaceful applications.

With accumulating and ever-increasing stockpiles  in the United States and USSR, the countries began  

assessing whether the weapons could be put to good  use rather than to just have them standing by.  

Soon enough, the United States started  its Operation Plowshare to assess whether  

nuclear arms could be employed for  excavation or natural gas fracturing.  

Most tests for the operation were conducted in the  Nevada desert over 20 years between 1958 to 1975,  

leaving behind a number of craters.

The Soviet Union implemented its own program  

called “Nuclear Explosions for the  National Economy.” This also focused  

primarily on practical applications in  mining and extraction of natural gas.

However, one significant difference is that  the United States preoccupied itself with  

the environmental effect of the tests.  It was an aspect that the Soviets almost  

completely neglected, and the USSR made some  questionable decisions. One test contaminated a  

highly-populated area along the Volga river.  They even used a nuclear bomb to create a  

reservoir by bombing another river - an act that  carries radioactive consequences to this day.

During their research into these new  unconventional uses of nuclear weapons, scientists  

in both countries began to conceptualize  solving other problems with peaceful nukes.  

These included shutting down oil and gas  leaks and capping dangerous volcanic activity.

The Oil Leak

The fire in question started when a well  Southern Uzbekistan suffered from an unexpected  

blowout in 1963. The blast occurred at  a depth of 2.4 kilometers underground.  

The escaping natural gas shot out of the ground  in a column of fire that burned reliably for  

nearly three years and released about 12 million  cubic meters of the valuable fossil fuel each day.

With the daily output of the leak, the  Soviets could have fuelled some cities,  

making the issue of the  blowout even more frustrating.

No one in the Soviet Union knew  how to put out such a complex fire.  

At a point of absolute desperation, the  Soviets began considering whether dropping  

a nuclear bomb at the site would be a feasible  and functional way of dealing with the issue.

Scientists, officials, and engineers set to work  on a concept for what nuking the area would look  

like. Physicists estimated that detonating a  bomb at a depth of 1,500 meters could close the  

shaft while the pressure caused could cut off the  fire. Furthermore, 30 kilotons, double the power  

of the little boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima,  would be needed for a successful operation.

The operation would be conducted in the fall  of 1966. The area was in a desert environment,  

meaning that any mishaps would hopefully  have few consequences for civilians. The  

field at Urtabulak was at least 100 miles from the  nearest developed area, the southeast of Bukhara.  

By then, the heat of the burning fire had carved  out a considerable crater in the desert sand.

Nukes and Leaks

After calculating the necessary depth and strength  of the bomb, officials determined that a nuclear  

blast would not only stop the fire, but it would  be the best option. They first had two boreholes  

drilled down to the blowout area, placing a  tube through which they could carry the bomb  

down to a depth of 1.4 kilometers. A 30-kiloton  nuke was lowered down one of the boreholes,  

and the well was filled up with cement  to prevent radiation from escaping.

The whole experiment was captured on film.  Details of the operation were recounted in  

the Soviet newspaper “Pravada Vostoka of  Tashkent,” which is located in Uzbekistan.  

Of the event, the newspaper published the  following: [QUOTE] “On that cold autumn day in  

1966, an underground tremor of unprecedented force  shook the with a sparse grass cover on white sand.  

A dusty haze rose over the desert. The orange  colored torch of the blazing well diminished,  

first slowly, then more rapidly, until it  flickered and finally died out. For the first time  

in 1,064 days, quiet descended on the area. The  jet-like roar of the gas well had been silenced.”

It took about 20 seconds for the fire to  be extinguished by the nuclear explosion.  

The Soviet engineers had managed to use the nuke  successfully and eliminate a 3 year-long problem.

It is generally agreed upon that this  was the first experiment of that nature.  

Furthermore, upon sharing information  with the United States, the occasion  

marked the first time they shared the  exact location of a nuclear blast.

This would not be the only instance where the  Soviets were able to test their technology in  

such a way. A few months after the Uzbekistan  gas leak was sealed, another fire broke out  

at the nearby Pamuk field, shooting flames  through several boreholes. To stop that fire,  

engineers opted to send a 47 kiloton  bomb 2.44 kilometers into the ground,  

following a similar protocol. This  second experiment was a success as well.

Russia is thought to have used the  technique at least five times. Eventually,  

a Soviet weapons lab developed a specific nuclear  

bomb intended to close holes between  82 and 164 meters away from the blast.