Who is red adair

Near the end of the Second World War, he searched for unexploded shells in Japan and disarmed them. In , Adair's reputation as a fearless firefighter spread when he put out a fire in Algeria nicknamed the Devil's Cigarette Lighter. It had been burning for six months, fueled by million cubic feet of gas a day. In , Adair's specialists put out a major offshore rig fire near Rio de Janeiro. Thick black smoke made it impossible to get any sense of direction.

Adair and his teams were housed in ransacked buildings, but most serious was a lack of equipment - and water. He decided to exploit pipelines used to carry oil from stations in the oilfields to the Persian Gulf. These would be reversed to carry salt water from the Gulf back to fight the fires, a plan that required pumping the 1. Adair had to fly to Washington in June to testify in order to get his equipment.

With his flair for showmanship, he showed a dramatic slide presentation, explaining that extinguishing a fire is not the most difficult part.

What happens afterwards is the most dangerous, because while the well is still blowing it can flash and reignite, killing the crew on top of it. Adair met President George Bush the following day to express his concerns, and got a pledge of support.

By early July, the equipment began rolling into Kuwait, and by November the Emir of Kuwait ceremoniously extinguished the last fire. Red Adair. Swashbuckling troubleshooter renowned for taming huge oil-well fires, heading a business that carried out more than 1, missions. One of those who took notice was Myron McKinley, a pioneer in the field of battling well blowouts and fires. But he knew he was lucky -- two other men caught in the blowout were killed.

One good thing about his line of work, he said later, was that it gave him freedom from life-insurance salesmen. As Adair pursued his trade, he perfected his techniques. He learned the right mixtures of heavy mud to pump down a well shaft to counter the rising gas in a blowout.

He designed and built improved equipment to stifle leaks. He developed new and better ways to emplace the nitroglycerin charges he used to blow out oil well fires. In the waning months of World War II, Adair enlisted in the Army, volunteering for an ordnance-disposal unit that ended up defusing unexploded bombs in postwar Japan. After his Army duty, he went back to work for McKinley. Adair took on more managerial duties, hiring better and more experienced workers. Adair never had much use for the accountants, lawyers, engineers and other college-educated types who tried to tell him how to do his job.

Oil-well drilling surged during the postwar economic boom, and for the first time in his life, Adair was making good money. He bought Cadillacs for himself and his wife -- painted fire-engine red, of course -- and they moved into ever bigger and more sumptuous homes.

Despite their newfound affluence, Kemmie and Red Adair had an often tempestuous relationship. Kemmie liked her independence, while Red wanted to rule the roost. Red spent a majority of his time on the job, away from the family, and Kemmie eventually got a home of her own, where she and their children spent increasing amounts of time. In , Adair started his own business, Red Adair Co.

The business, which started slowly, picked up steam rapidly during the oil boom of the s.