I'm not sure about that, but I know in the Middle-East there were hundreds of oil wells burning. They called in this group from Texas who used dynomite to put out the flames. It was really cool.

They'd place the dynomite right at the point where the well was spewing oil, and detonate it. The shock wave would put out the flame (similar to using a loud sound to put out a small candle).

Then they would (after a few hours of waiting for the well to cool down so they would work with it) put on a new valve. They did this to some 800 wells in under a year, I think (but I could be wrong).