Paul Neal “Red” Adair is remembered today as the undisputed King of Oilwell Firefighting, a long way from the humble circumstances into which he was born on June 18, 1915, in Houston.
Adair, the son of a blacksmith, dropped out of high school during the height of the Great Depression to help support his family. His introduction to working in the oil industry was working at Otis Pressure Control Company, where he learned to sketch designs for improved extraction equipment. This was also his first exposure to fighting oil well fires.
During World War II, Adair served in the Army as a member of an elite bomb disposal unit. After his discharge, Adair went to work for Myron Kinley, the founder of the blowout control industry. They developed a method of using explosives with a high velocity blast to extinguish oil well fires. Adair founded the Red Adair Company in 1959. During his career, he fought more than 2,000 land and offshore oil well, natural gas well, and similar fires.
Adair placed a priority on the safety of his employees. He was proud that neither he nor his workers had suffered any serious injuries, although his definition of serious might have differed from others.
“I’ve got cut half in two, once, and blowed up a time or two, but nothing permanent,” he once told a reporter for the Globe and Mail, a Toronto newspaper.
Adair gained notoriety as a fearless firefighter in 1962 when he and his crew put out a fire in Algeria, nicknamed the Devil’s Cigarette Lighter. The gas well had been burning for six months. The 450-foot flame was fueled by 550 million cubic feet of gas a day.
“People call me a daredevil, but they don’t understand,” he told his biographer, Philip Singerman. “A daredevil’s reckless, and that ain’t me. The devil’s down in that hole and I’ve seen what he can do, and I’m not daring him at all. I’m a beware-devil, that’s what I am.”
Adair was known for his technological innovations. In addition to many firefighting gadgets of his own design, his semi-submersible vessel for fighting offshore fires is one of the many fire boats he created. Adair also developed the Athey wagon, which was a modified bulldozer used for cleaning debris or placing explosions at a well site.
Adair enjoyed the respect of his peers and the public. He also had respect from Hollywood’s biggest star of the time, John Wayne, who played a fictitious version of Adair in the 1968 movie Hellfighters. Adair was a technical consultant to the film, and he and Wayne, who reportedly first met in a men’s room, became friends.
In 1977, Adair and his crew participated in the capping of the biggest oil well blowout in the North Sea, and at that time the largest offshore blowout worldwide.
When Adair was 75 years old, he helped put out the oil well fires set by Iraqi troops retreating from Kuwait in 1991 after the Persian Gulf War.
Two of Adair’s top crewmen, Asker “Boots” Hansen and Ed “Coots” Matthews, formed their own company, Boots & Coots International Well Control, Inc., in 1978. They got their training from Adair.
Adair retired in 1993. He sold the Red Adair Service and Marine Company to Global Industries.
Adair contributed to charitable organizations that supported children’s health. Since his death in 2004, Adair’s granddaughter, Sunny Hinson Adair, honors that legacy through the Red Adair Foundation. The Shriners Children’s Hospital in Galveston, which specializes in treating pediatric burn injuries, is the foundation’s primary beneficiary.
The roads surrounding South Shore Harbor Marina in League City were renamed in Adair’s honor following his death.
Never fear a job, always respect it, and always leave yourself a hind door to escape. May your hind door always be open.
Red Adair
