Paul Neal "Red" Adair (June 18, 1915 – August 7, 2004)[1][2][3] was a renowned American oil well firefighter. He became world notable as an innovator in the highly specialized and extremely hazardous profession of extinguishing and capping blazing, erupting oil wells, both land-based and offshore.
Biography
Adair was born in Houston, Texas, and attended Reagan High School. He began fighting oil well fires after returning from serving in a bomb disposal unit during World War II. Red started his career working for Myron Kinley, 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 notability in 1962, when he tackled a fire at a gas field in the Sahara nicknamed the Devil's Cigarette Lighter, a 450-foot (137 m) pillar of flame. In 1977, he and his crew (including Asger "Boots" Hansen) contributed in mending the biggest oil well blowout ever to have occurred in the North Sea (and the 2nd largest offshore blowout worldwide, in terms of volume of crude oil spilled), more specifically at the Ekofisk Bravo platform, located in the Norwegian sector and operated by Phillips Petroleum Company (now ConocoPhillips). In 1978, Adair's top lieutenants Asger "Boots" Hansen and Ed "Coots" Matthews left to found competitor Boots & Coots International Well Control, Inc. In 1988, he helped put out the UK sector Piper Alpha oil platform 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.
Red Adair retired in 1993, and sold The Red Adair Service and Marine Company to Global Industries.[4] His top employees (Brian Krause, Raymond Henry, Rich Hatteberg) left in 1994 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.[4] Adair died in 2004.
Legacy
- The 1968 John Wayne movie Hellfighters was based upon the feats of Adair during the 1962 Sahara Desert fire.
- The History Channel's Modern Marvels episode on "Oil Well Firefighting" was one of Adair's last interviews prior to his death. The episode aired after Adair's death and was dedicated to his memory.
- Adair was associated with a Rolex advertising campaign in the 1980s.
The roads around South Shore Harbour Marina in
League City, Texas, where Red Adair kept his boat, were named after him.
Quotes
- "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)
- "There are two things I really like about my job. When the phone rings I never know where I'm heading to next - and I'm never bothered by life-insurance salesmen!" - (to an interviewer)
- "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur."
Notes
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