Weirder shit has certainly happened. I'm not sure why they'd intentionally set something like that ablaze, but there's a whole sector of the industry (made popular by Red Adair (www.youtube.com)) that specializes in getting these uncontrolled releases back to a safe(r) state. Thankfully, as our understanding and technology has gotten better, it seems that these events have tapered off a bit from the "cowboy up" days of yesteryear.

Given the guy's distractingly bright red FRCs, my money is that this was very likely a Boots and Coots (www.halliburton.com) well control intervention. Then again, I want as little do with the things that happen out in the field as I can possibly get, so...yeah.

Related note: depending on reservoir characteristics/well type/etc, it might have been almost exclusively crude oil or some mix of crude/natural gas/water/sand/whatever. Just like kids and pets, some wells are better than others :)