This is not what our overheated planet needs. A battle between ISIS and Petroleum Facilities Guards caused this massive fire on Libya's Mediterranean Coast. Islamic State has never had control of any oil installations in this war torn country. This mission was quite aggressive but ultimately unsuccessful. NASA’s Earth Observatory images can be found here.
By 11:35 a.m. local time (09:35 Universal Time) on January 7, the winds had shifted, driving the smoke southeast as shown in an image acquired by the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite. A multispectal imager on the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 2 got an even closer view of the fires. The image above were acquired at 11:39 a.m. Libya time (09:39 UTC) on January 5, 2016.Reuters reports:
Three days of Islamic State attacks on Libya's biggest oil terminals have started fires that have spread to five massive oil storage tanks, a guards spokesman said on Wednesday.
Ali al-Hassi said the Petroleum Facilities Guards were still in control of the neighboring ports of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, where at least nine guards were killed and more than 40 injured near the ports' perimeters on Monday and Tuesday.
Hassi said guards had recovered bodies of 30 Islamic State fighters, and had captured two military tanks and other vehicles from the militants.
He also said the guards had received air support from forces loyal to the General National Congress (GNC), the government that has controlled Tripoli since its rival, which was internationally recognized, moved to Bayda in the east in 2014.
Firefighters were trying to control four fires at Es Sider and one at Ras Lanuf. Two were triggered by Islamic State shelling, and three more had caught fire, Hassi said.
Mohamed al-Manfi, an oil official in eastern Libya, said each of the oil tanks was estimated to contain 420,000 to 460,000 barrels of oil.