The flames you see on oil rigs are intentional. That visible fire, usually burning at the end of a long metal arm extending from the platform, is called a flare. It burns off excess natural gas that rises to the surface alongside crude oil during extraction. This gas, known as associated gas, can’t always be captured or stored, so operators burn it in a controlled way to keep the platform safe.
What the Flare Actually Does
When oil is pulled from underground reservoirs, natural gas comes up with it. On some platforms, there’s no pipeline or storage infrastructure to collect that gas and send it somewhere useful. Without a way to safely dispose of it, the gas would accumulate on the platform and create an explosion risk. Burning it off through a flare eliminates that danger.
The associated gas can also contain toxic compounds like hydrogen sulfide. Burning it destroys most of these harmful substances before they can reach workers on the platform or escape into the surrounding air unburned. So flaring serves a dual purpose: it gets rid of gas the platform can’t use, and it converts dangerous chemicals into less harmful byproducts.
This is wasteful. An estimated 40 percent of the natural gas vented and flared on U.S. federal leases alone could be economically captured with existing technology. But in many cases, building the infrastructure to collect the gas is either too expensive relative to its value or physically impractical given the platform’s location. That’s why flaring persists even though the gas has commercial value.
The Flame That Never Goes Out
If you’ve noticed that the flame seems to burn constantly, that’s because most flare systems maintain a small pilot light at all times. This pilot flame is considered the single most critical component of the flare system. If a sudden rush of gas hits the flare tip and there’s no flame waiting to ignite it, unburned gas would simply vent into the atmosphere, creating both a health hazard and an explosion risk. The pilot ensures that any gas reaching the flare tip ignites immediately, whether it’s a trickle of routine waste gas or a massive emergency release.
Modern pilot systems use electric ignition and can operate in manual or automatic modes. Some include flame detection rods that monitor whether the pilot is still burning and reignite it if wind or rain snuffs it out.
Emergency Pressure Relief
Beyond routine gas disposal, the flare system is the platform’s pressure release valve. Oil and gas extraction involves handling extremely high and unpredictable pressures. A sudden spike in pressure inside processing equipment could cause a catastrophic explosion if there’s nowhere for the gas to go.
During an emergency, operators can isolate sections of the platform and rapidly vent pressurized gas to the flare, where it burns off safely. This process, called blowdown, follows a carefully staggered sequence. The flare system typically isn’t designed to handle every section of the platform venting at once (that would require an enormous and prohibitively expensive system). Instead, valves open one section at a time, each releasing its pressure to the flare before the next one opens. This keeps the total gas flow within what the flare can safely handle while still depressurizing the entire facility.
Why the Flare Sits So Far From the Platform
You’ll notice the flare isn’t mounted on the main structure. It sits at the end of a long boom or on a tall stack, and there’s a specific engineering reason for that. The flame generates intense heat, and workers need to be able to stay on the platform and do their jobs safely.
Industrial flares are designed so that the heat reaching workers in the surrounding area stays below a threshold that allows them to remain and perform their duties. The minimum stack height is typically 30 feet, but most offshore flares are positioned much farther away. Engineers calculate the required distance using formulas that account for the maximum rate of gas the flare might need to burn, the resulting thermal radiation, surrounding structures, noise levels, and what happens to the exhaust gases as they disperse. The goal is straightforward: burn the gas where it can’t hurt anyone or damage equipment.
Accidental Fires Are a Separate Risk
The flare itself is controlled and deliberate, but oil rigs do face genuine fire hazards from unintended sources. Offshore platforms are packed with power generators, turbines, steam systems, and boilers that produce significant heat. Any of these hot surfaces can become an ignition source if flammable hydrocarbons leak nearby. Safety regulators have received multiple incident reports involving hotter-than-expected surface temperatures caused by degraded insulation material on equipment that had been operating for years.
Maintenance work adds another layer of risk. Welding, cutting, and grinding (collectively called “hot work”) produce sparks and open flames in an environment filled with flammable substances. Regulations require that the atmosphere in any confined space be tested before hot work begins. When hot work has to happen near flammable materials, additional personnel are assigned to watch for fires both during the work and for a period afterward. Any drums or containers that have held flammable liquids must be cleaned, ventilated, and tested before anyone applies heat to them.
How Platforms Fight Fires
Because the consequences of an uncontrolled fire on an offshore platform are severe, rigs carry layered fire suppression systems. Deluge systems are the primary defense: networks of nozzles that can drench entire sections of the platform with seawater almost instantly. These high-volume systems are designed to cool equipment and structures fast enough to prevent a fire from spreading, even when the fuel source is pressurized hydrocarbons.
Platforms also carry foam systems that blanket burning liquid surfaces to cut off oxygen, along with fire monitors that can direct powerful streams of water or foam at specific locations. Every component in these systems is built from corrosion-resistant materials to withstand the saltwater environment. The systems are kept in constant readiness because on an offshore platform, there’s no fire department to call.
The Push to Reduce Flaring
Flaring releases carbon dioxide and, when combustion is incomplete, methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas. A World Bank initiative launched in 2015 has committed governments and oil companies to end routine flaring no later than 2030. “Routine” is the key word: safety flaring during emergencies and equipment malfunctions would still be permitted, since the alternative is venting raw gas or risking an explosion. The target is eliminating the everyday, ongoing burning of gas that could otherwise be captured, used for power generation, or reinjected into the reservoir.
Progress has been slow. The economic math still doesn’t favor gas capture in many remote offshore locations, and building pipelines to platforms that may only operate for another decade or two is hard to justify financially. For now, the flame at the end of the boom remains a fixture of offshore oil production: a visible reminder that getting oil out of the ground produces gas that has to go somewhere.