"A Texas firefighting team today extinguished the first of 500 oil-well fires set by Iraqi troops and declared a "small victory" that could mark a turning point in the operation. The team from a Houston-based company, Boots & Coots, using liquid nitrogen and water, put out a relatively small fire on its second attempt this morning. "I think it's very important," Boots Hansen, the boss of the firefighting team, said of the achievement. He said the method -- injecting nitrogen into the fire through a large cylinder attached to a giant bulldozer while spraying water at the base of the cylinder -- was less time-consuming than other methods, like the use of dynamite. "It's a small victory," said Larry Flak, a Houston oil engineer coordinating the entire firefighting effort. "Now we can go from well to well to well without a lot of rigging up or preparation." Mr. Hansen estimated that the nitrogen method, which deprives the fire of needed oxygen, could probably be used on half the fires set by the Iraqis late in February, before allied ground troops drove them from Kuwait."