The Homa Files

This is a retro post for my higher mileage readers …

Watching the BP spill gives me a touch of nostalgia.

Remember in the old days – whenever an oil well caught fire or “blew out” — the SOS went out to Red Adair – a legend in capping distressed oil wells.

Adair became world notable as an innovator in the highly specialized and extremely hazardous profession of extinguishing and capping blazing, erupting oil well blowouts, both land-based and offshore.

Over his long career he battled more than 2,000 land and offshore oil well, natural gas well, and similar spectacular fires.

He 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).

Adair died August 7, 2004, so BP couldn’t call him this time.

Isn’t there another Red Adair out there someplace who can swoop in and save the day ?

Bio excerpts from Wikipedia – the Homa Family wagering bible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Adair

* * * * *

Red Adair, The Legend
http://www.redadair.com/hisstory.html

Red Adair, oil-well firefighter, dies at 89
Texas businessman revolutionized science of burning wells
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5641205/

This entry was posted on June 15, 2010 at 6:26 am and is filed under Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.