Hellfighter Red Adair

Born in 1915, Paul Neal "Red" Adair, was a prominent oil well firefighter from Houston, Texas. As a member of the elite 139th Bomb Disposal Unit in World War II, he would return home in 1946 and work under Myron Kinley, an oil well firefighting pioneer who's strategies Adair learned from and revolutionized. By using explosives, water cannons, bulldozers, drilling mud, and concrete, Adair tackled nearly 3,000 oil well fires throughout his career. Forming the Red Adair Company in 1959, Adair and his team traveled worldwide extinguishing well fires that had burned for days, weeks, and even months.

The Red Adair Company's reputation grew so large, the 1968 film "Hellfighters" was loosely based on Adair's life, with John Wayne playing him and Adair consulting on set. Adair and his team would successfully extinguish oil well fires in Scotland, the North Sea, the Sahara Desert, and most notably the hundreds of wells set afire in Kuwait during the Gulf War in 1991. He is even noted to have happily spent his 76th birthday working the well fires in Kuwait.

Image Courtesy of IMDb

As dangerous as this line of work is, Adair never had any fatalities. Albeit injuries occurred, including him being crushed by a crane and having smoke-blindness for a few days, he cared deeply for his family, friends, and team, and understood the toll taken on his family when he was called out to a well fire, many times overseas.

Adair retired in 1993 and passed away in 2004 at the age of 89, leaving a wife, son, and daughter.

Image Courtesy of the Houston Chronicle