Paul Neal "Red" Adair (June 18, 1915 – August 7, 2004) was a renowned American oil field firefighter. He became world famous as an innovator in the highly specialized and extremely hazardous profession of extinguishing and capping blazing, erupting oil wells, both land-based and offshore.

Adair was born in Houston, Texas, and attended Reagan High School. Adair began fighting oil well fires after returning from serving in a bomb disposal unit during World War II. Red started his career working for the MM Kinley Company, the "original" blowout/oil firefighting pioneer. He founded Red Adair Co., Inc., in 1959, and over his long career battled more than 2,000 land and offshore oil well, natural gas well, and similar spectacular fires. Red Adair gained global fame in 1962, when he tackled a fire at a gas field in the Sahara, a 450-foot (137m) pillar of flame, nicknamed the Devil's Cigarette Lighter. In 1988, he helped put out the Piper Alpha oil rig fire. At age 75, Adair took part in extinguishing the oil well fires in Kuwait set by retreating Iraqi troops after the Gulf War in 1991. In 1978, Adair's top lieutenants Asger "Boots" Hansen and Ed "Coots" Matthews left to found competitor Boots & Coots International Well Control, Inc. Boots & Coots bought its predecessor company in 1997, three years after Red Adair's retirement.

Red Adair retired in 1993, sold his company The Red Adair Service and Marine Company to Global Industries. His top employees (Brian Krause, Raymond Henry, Rich Hatteberg) left and formed their own company, International Well Control (IWC). In 1997, IWC purchased the remnants of Boots and Coots and the company is now Boots & Coots/IWC.

The 1968 John Wayne movie Hellfighters was based upon the feats of Adair during the 1962 Sahara desert fire.

Fire at the Wellhead

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Fire requires fuel, heat, and oxygen to burn (the fire triangle principle): In fighting a fire at a wellhead (the portion of the well at and just above the ground's surface), typically high explosives such as dynamite are used to consume all the local atmospheric oxygen and snuff the flame first. Doing so removes the oxygen, but the fuel (the natural gas or oil) is still present, often a huge "fountain" of oil surrounds the work area, showering fuel upon the working crew.

After snuffing, the wellhead must be capped to stop the flow of fuel. During this time, the fuel and oxygen required to create another inferno is present in copious amounts. At this perilous stage, one small spark (perhaps from a steel or iron tool striking a stone) or other heat source might re-ignite the fuel.

To prevent re-ignition, brass or bronze tools, which do not strike sparks, or paraffin coated tools are used during the capping process. Meticulous care is used to avoid heat and sparks, or any other ignition source. The explosive re-ignition of a wellhead may take the form of an extremely powerful explosion, possibly even worse than the original blowout.

Due to recent advances in technology as well as environmental concerns, many wells today are capped while they burn. The use of high-powered water sprays and Purple K dry chemical (a potassium bicarbonate mixture) are used to extinguish the wells.

Quotes

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• "It scares you—all the noise, the rattling, the shaking. But the look on everybody's face when you're finished and packing, it's the best smile in the world; and there's nobody hurt, and the well's under control." (describing a typical blowout experience)

• "Retire? I don't know what that word means. As long as a man is able to work and he's productive out there and he feels good—keep at it. I've got too many of my friends that retired and went home and got on a rocking chair, and about a year and a half later, I'm always going to the cemetery." (to reporters while working at the Kuwaiti oil well fires at the end of the Gulf War in 1991)

• "I've done made a deal with the devil. He said he's going to give me an air-conditioned place when I go down there, if I go there, so I won't put all the fires out." (in 1991, joking about afterlife alternatives)

External links

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• Red Adair, world-renowned firefighter, dies – CNN.com, 8 August,2004
• Obituary: Red Adair - BBC News - August 8, 2004
• Obituary - Red Adair - The Guardian - 9 August, 2004

American firefighters | Petroleum | 1915 births | 2004 deaths | People from Houston

Paul Neal Adair | Paul Neal Adair | Red Adair | Paul Adair | Paul N. Adair