During their retreat at the end of the Gulf War, Iraqi military forces execute a scorched-earth policy, sabotaging and setting fire to over 600 Kuwaiti oil wells, mostly in the Burgan field. The resulting infernos burn for months, releasing massive pillars of toxic black smoke that block out the sun, drop local temperatures, and rain down toxic oil droplets across the region. The fires create vast lakes of crude oil that coat the desert floor, creating an unprecedented environmental catastrophe that requires an international coalition of engineering teams to extinguish.

The horrific imagery of the Kuwaiti oil fires sparks an immediate, intense response from Middle Eastern and international poets, who view the burning desert as a literal fulfillment of apocalyptic prophecies. Arab poets write urgent, harrowing verses depicting the blacked-out skies and toxic rain, using the burning wells as a searing symbol for the destructive intersections of global militarism, resource dependency, and ecological devastation in the modern era.