The flames within the crater of Darvazain the desert of Karakumin Turkmenistan – Also known as the “Port of Hell” – They seem to have started extinguishafter a fire that lasted beyond fifty years. The merit is above all of the activity of extraction gas residual in the deposit started by the national government, in an attempt to remedy an error made more than half a century ago. The news was communicated by the director of the State Energy Company Turkmengaz, Irina Luryevaduring the scientific conference “Environmental Aspects of the implementation of Innovative Technologies in The Development of Hydrocarbon Deposits“(Environmental aspects of the implementation of innovative technologies in the development of hydrocarbons deposits), held ad Ashgabatthe capital of Turkmenistan, last June 5, 2025.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hk3wtf3ti0
“The reduction of fires is almost tripledHe said Irina Luryevaadding: “Previously visible from afar, now the fires are visible only in the immediate vicinity of the crater». In fact, one of the peculiarities of the Porta della Turkmenistan Hell is precisely the glow resulting from the fires that flare inside, in the past visible, at night, at a distance of several kilometers.
The latest data have not yet been made public. It would seem, however, that the progressive extinguishing of the fires is to be attributed to a project started by Turkmengaz in 2022when the company would have perforated a new tilted wellpenetrating the field with the aim of recover the gassuccessfully deviating part of the flow that previously reached the bottom of the crater.
The success of this intervention was already visible in August of the 2023when the fires of a factor two. In his latest intervention in Ashgabat, Irina Luryeva would also declare that the most recent efforts have focused on the construction of several wells Of containmentdesigned to capture the residual methane before it reaches the atmosphere.
It would therefore seem that in the coming years we could really witness the emination of the flames within the remote crater located in the Siberian tundra, which burns continuously from 1971. In that year, geologists and engineers decided to burn methane Escape uncontrolled by a well, after having perforated by mistake a vast bag of underground gases, in the hope that the reserves were exhausted within a few weeks. Currently, the crater measures about 70 meters in diameter for 30 meters deep, and attracts beyond 10,000 visitors every year.
