A massive fireball and a towering plume of black smoke are the latest images from Yemen's escalating war, as Saudi-led coalition forces struck a Yemen Petroleum Company facility in the al-Sabaha area of Houthi-controlled Sanaa. The strike came shortly after the coalition took the unusual step of publicly urging civilians to evacuate the site, marking it on a map and warning people to leave for their own safety. Houthi-affiliated media reported that air strikes hit the oil facility, and Al Jazeera's team on the ground said they heard explosions in the capital soon after the warning. The depot sits on a hill in western Sanaa overlooking the city, and the dramatic footage, filmed through a window, shows the blaze lighting up the skyline.

The strike lands at a tense moment, following a deadly Houthi-claimed missile attack on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport that left at least 13 people dead and more than 300 injured, and a projectile hit at the same airport the next day that killed one more person. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree had already vowed that any attack on Sanaa would be met with a "harsh and painful" response in the Saudi capital. He then named specific targets, telling civilians to evacuate Aramco's headquarters in Dammam, Riyadh's airport, and an Aramco-affiliated refinery in Riyadh, and calling Aramco facilities legitimate targets. The fighting is also part of a wider regional spillover tied to the conflict between the United States and Iran, with Riyadh's airport still closed and air travel across Saudi Arabia disrupted. With both sides now targeting each other's energy infrastructure, the risk to oil supplies and civilians is climbing fast.