Two fires hit Basra oil and fuel facilities in one night
Shafaq News- Basra
Two separate fires broke out Saturday at oil and fuel facilities in Basra province, southern Iraq, with civil defense and firefighting teams responding to both incidents.
The first erupted at the Oil Pipeline Company, the Shuaiba Refinery, and a fuel loading island during a gasoline tanker loading operation, a source told Shafaq News. Teams fully extinguished the blaze with no casualties or material losses reported, and an investigation has been opened to determine the cause.
At a fuel station in the Uwaysian area of Abu al-Khasib district, a second fire ignited after fuel leaked from a motorcycle and made contact with the vehicle's exhaust pipe during refueling. Firefighters brought the blaze under control. One worker sustained minor injuries.
Basra's oil infrastructure has seen a series of fire emergencies in recent months. In October 2025, a gas leak sparked a fire at the old pumping system of the Zubair-1 depot in the al-Burjesia area, killing one Basra Oil Company employee and injuring nine others before emergency teams fully contained the blaze. Earlier, a fire at the Rumaila oil field's DS5 gas facility disrupted exports and injured six workers, with Iraq's Parliamentary Oil and Gas Committee pointing to negligence and aging infrastructure as contributing factors.
