Firefighters battle massive fire at northern Iraq oil refinery

BY SALAR SALIM and ABDULRAHMAN ZEYAD
Associated Press

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — A team of 32 firefighters in northern Iraq is battling to put out a massive fire, a day after it broke out at an oil refinery, with more than a dozen of them injured while tackling the blaze, local officials said.  The fire broke out late Wednesday at a large refinery in Irbil, in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. The Khazir refinery, owned by local private businessmen, is one of the largest in Irbil, producing gasoline, kerosene, and white oil. It had been a major supplier for the city of Mosul. Iraq’s Kurdish region produces hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil each day.