Iraq Oil Fires Causing Showers of Black Rain : Environment: Allied raids or Iraqi sabotage have started petroleum blazes. The smoke fouls rainwater, polluting natural resources.

A shower of black rain fell along the Iranian frontier Sunday as allied warplanes continued pounding the southern Iraqi city of Basra and surrounding oil facilities.

The phenomenon, a mixture of natural moisture and smoke from petroleum fires, began falling Sunday morning in Iran’s Ilam province, according to a Tehran dispatch of the Iranian national news agency. Black rain, it reported, “has polluted the environment, water and agricultural resources in the region.”

Allied planes began bombing the Basra area just after midnight, rattling windows in the Iranian port of Khorramshahr 25 miles distant. Facing the Shatt al Arab waterway that forms the frontier between Iran and Iraq, Basra is the communications and supply hub between Iraqi leaders in Baghdad and their army in besieged Kuwait. It is also a prime target of the American-led air war.

Intelligence and press reports over the last week say allied raids or Iraqi sabotage have started a number of oil-field fires in the occupied sheikdom, pumping a blanket of thick oil smoke over the battlefield. Whatever its military significance, civilians fleeing Kuwait say the oil smoke damaged air quality in Kuwait city.

“It’s hard to breathe under this smoke,” said Jemila Assi, a 42-year-old woman who fled Kuwait three days ago and crossed the Iraqi border into Jordan on Sunday. “Everything’s oily; your hands are black.”

Black rain is one of the environmental hazards of the Persian Gulf War, along with the oil spills threatening wildlife and water supplies along the Saudi and Iranian shorelines.

For the first time since the war began a month ago, no allied bombing was reported over Baghdad on Sunday, the air campaign presumably affected by heavy rains that moved east out of the Mediterranean on Saturday. The same rains were falling in the shellshocked Basra area, where Radio Baghdad reported 110 raids in a 24-hour span, attacking supply lines to the Iraqi soldiers dug into the Kuwaiti desert.

Allied planes also pummeled targets on the Faw Peninsula, site of Iraq’s damaged and dormant oil-loading facilities, and the town of al Khasib southeast of Basra. Reporters in Baghdad quoted troops on leave from Kuwait as saying the highway from Basra to Kuwait city was under attack.

A military communique broadcast by Radio Baghdad claimed that four allied planes were shot down.

At the Jordan-Iraq border Sunday, recent refugees from Kuwait spoke of deteriorating living conditions for those who have risked the dangers of war to stay on. Tap water supplies are spotty, and bottled water is expensive, if it is available.

The main shortage was bread. “Some bakeries are still open,” said Assi, whose husband was a finance manager in Kuwait city. “They will give you five loaves if they have it. But if you have a big family and can get flour, you can make bread at home.”

Some other women crossing into Jordan at the border post of Ruweished said that flour was scarce and that residents of Kuwait city were grinding barley, corn and even birdseed to make pan-fried bread.

Several refugees from Kuwait said they had felt the thunderous effect of shelling by the U.S. battleship Missouri’s 16-inch guns. “It was very strong,” said a Palestinian who identified himself only as Abu Mahmoud. “You could feel the buildings shake.”

As they made their way to Jordan, the refugees’ main problem was finding gasoline. “When you run short, you park, you ask the people, you go looking,” the Palestinian said. The gas stations in Iraq have been closed for weeks, and civilians are selling stored supplies at one liter for 10 Iraqi dinars, more than $30 at the official exchange rate.