Originally published 2021-07-04.
On the morning of Friday, 2 July 2021, a gas pipeline lying on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico ruptured, and the escaping gas caught fire at the surface. For roughly five hours a ring of orange flame churned on the water west of the Yucatán Peninsula, close to an offshore platform operated by Mexico's state oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex). Pemex said nobody was hurt, and fire-fighting vessels eventually put the blaze out.
Videos of the flames spread around the world within hours. Many viewers called it an "eye of fire", others compared it to Mordor from The Lord of the Rings. Below is a clear account of what happened, why water can appear to burn, what the authorities said, and which questions were never fully answered.
What happened on 2 July 2021
The leak occurred in the Ku-Maloob-Zaap complex, a cluster of offshore fields in the Bay of Campeche, about 105 km from the port city of Ciudad del Carmen. At the time it was Pemex's most productive oil asset, pumping more than 700,000 barrels of oil a day according to reporting at the time.
The rupture happened in the early hours of the morning in an underwater line near one of the field's platforms. Gas bubbling up through the water ignited, producing a circle of fire that seemed to boil out of the sea. Fire boats sprayed water on the flames, and according to the Associated Press the crews also used nitrogen to help extinguish the fire. After about five hours Pemex said the leak was under control and the flames were out.
The company reported no injuries. Early reports placed the leak within a few hundred metres of a production platform, which is why the crews nearby could see the flames rise so close to their installation.
Why the sea seemed to be on fire
Water itself cannot burn. What viewers saw was natural gas, mostly methane, escaping from a breach in a pressurised pipe on the seabed. Gas released at depth rises quickly as a column of bubbles. When it reaches the surface it mixes with air, and if it meets a spark or a hot surface it ignites. Because the gas keeps arriving from below in a steady, roughly circular plume, the flames form a ring that looks like a burning whirlpool.
That is why the footage looked so unreal. Climate journalist Brian Kahn captured the reaction of many people in a widely shared post:
"The ocean is on fire” is one of those things that you can type and it’s true and yet it doesn’t feel believable https://t.co/EouJfQIbjq
— Brian Kahn (@blkahn) July 2, 2021
Although the leak involved gas, not crude oil, some observers asked how much hydrocarbon liquid reached the surface. Lines in an oil field can carry mixtures of gas and liquids, but officials did not publish a breakdown of what escaped.
What caused the rupture
Pemex said it would carry out a root-cause analysis but released few details at first. Reuters later reported, citing an internal Pemex incident report, that an electrical storm and heavy rain had damaged key machinery shortly before the leak. That points to a chain of failures rather than a single broken pipe, but a full public report on the exact sequence was not widely published.
The incident came at a difficult time for the company. Pemex carried roughly $114 billion of debt, and analysts had long argued that its finances limited investment in maintenance and modern equipment. A month later, in August 2021, a separate explosion and fire on the E-Ku-A2 platform in the same field killed at least five workers, which renewed scrutiny of safety at Mexico's offshore installations.
The environmental question
The day after the fire, Ángel Carrizales, head of Mexico's agency for safety and environmental protection in the oil sector (ASEA), wrote on Twitter that the incident did not generate any spill. Journalists and environmental groups were sceptical. Something had to be floating on the water for the flames to persist, they argued, and burning gas releases carbon dioxide and, where combustion is incomplete, unburned methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Independent measurements of how much gas escaped, and of any effect on fish, seabirds or the seabed, were not made public. The honest summary is that the visible fire was brief, nobody was injured, and the long-term environmental footprint remains unknown.
Miyoko Sakashita, oceans programme director at the Center for Biological Diversity, used the moment to argue against offshore drilling. In her words, the footage showed the world "that offshore drilling is dirty and dangerous." Her organisation called for an end to new oil and gas leasing in the Gulf. Pemex and the Mexican government, by contrast, presented the event as a contained industrial accident.
Myths and misreadings that spread online
"The ocean caught fire"
The ocean did not burn. Gas from a broken pipe burned on top of the water. The phrase made a striking headline, but it led some readers to imagine a giant oil slick in flames, which is not what the evidence showed.
"It was an oil spill like Deepwater Horizon"
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in US waters killed 11 workers and released millions of barrels of crude over 87 days. The 2021 Pemex fire lasted hours, involved a gas line and caused no reported injuries. They belong in very different categories, even if both raise questions about offshore safety.
"A volcano or lava under the sea"
Some social media posts suggested volcanic activity. There is no volcano at this location; the cause was a leaking pipeline, as Pemex itself confirmed.
What it tells us about offshore infrastructure
The Gulf of Mexico is crossed by thousands of kilometres of subsea pipelines carrying oil and gas from platforms to shore. Most of the time they are invisible. Events like this one show how quickly a failure can become visible and dramatic, and how much depends on maintenance, storm-proof equipment and rapid shut-off valves.
For readers following stories like this, a few practical points help separate drama from substance:
- Look for the operator's root-cause report and whether regulators publish their own findings.
- Check whether independent scientists measured emissions or water quality, rather than relying only on statements from the company or its regulator.
- Note follow-up incidents at the same site, which can reveal whether problems were isolated or systemic.
The striking images from July 2021 faded from timelines in days, but the questions they raised about ageing infrastructure, extreme weather and transparency in state-run energy companies remain relevant.
Sources: Associated Press / Washington Post report via Stars and Stripes, 3 July 2021; Wikipedia: Ku-Maloob-Zaap; Brian Kahn on Twitter. Story first shared via the Washington Post.
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