On November 13, 1961 the Devil lit his “Cigarette Lighter” in the Algerian Sahara when fire broke out at the Gassi Touil gas field. The fires burned until April 28, 1962 when Texan “Red” Adair put them out, earning worldwide fame.
“Red” Adair served with a bomb disposal unit during World War II. After the war, he began fighting oil well fires using a highly specialized (not to mention extremely dangerous) method of blowing the wells, depriving them of fire-feeding oxygen until they could be capped. Toward the end of his long successful career, he took part in controlling and extinguishing the oil well fires in Kuwait, set by Saddam Hussein’s retreating Iraqi forces after the 1991 Gulf War.
Mr. Adair was 75…and still the best.
