Paul Neal Adair

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Red Adair 1964

Paul Neal Adair , known as Red Adair (born June 18, 1915 in Houston , Texas , † August 7, 2004 ), was an American firefighter and founder of the Red Adair company to fight large fires.

Life

Paul Neal Adair was born as one of eight children in modest circumstances, his father was a blacksmith. He had to leave school at the age of 14 to do odd jobs to support his family. He learned his later profession after the end of the Second World War in Houston with the firefighter Myron Kinley, who was also known far beyond the city limits .

Adair clears the burning Elk Hills oil field on October 27, 1977

He first became known in 1962 when a gas source in the Gassi Touil gas field in the Algerian Sahara had been burning for more than six months . Adair became known in German-speaking countries for his work in combating a leak caused by unsuccessful drilling work on the night of September 29th to 30th, 1980, in which large quantities of natural gas shot out of the underground storage facility near Frankenthal (Palatinate) under high pressure . He achieved international fame through the extinguishing of 117 burning oil wells in Kuwait after the end of the Second Gulf War in 1991. The more than 2000 fires that he put out during his career include the one on the Piper Alpha oil platform in the North Sea, 120 miles northeast from Aberdeen . The platform caught fire on the night of July 6, 1988, killing 167 members of the 229 crew.

Adair developed special fire fighting methods that have nothing to do with normal fire fighting operations. For example, he fought fires on leaky gas pipes with targeted explosives, which consumed so much oxygen that the fire was extinguished.

In 1939 he married his wife Kemmie. The two had a son and a daughter.

In 1968 his adventure life with John Wayne in the lead role as Hellfighters (German title: Die Unerschrockenen ) was filmed. The nickname "Red" was derived from his red hair color, the color was soon seen as his trademark . He always wore a fiery red protective suit on missions, and usually a red tie when appearing in public. In 1993 he sold his Red Adair Co. Inc., founded in 1959, and retired in 1994. He died in 2004 at the age of 89.

literature

  • Philip Singerman: Red Adair, The Fire Extinguisher . The authorized biography, Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1991, ISBN 3-404-61250-7
  • Philip Singerman: Red Adair, to American Hero . Bloomsbury Publishing Limited, London 1989, ISBN 0-7475-0374-5
  • Wolfgang Jendsch: Red Adair - the devil's firefighter . (BRAND - Die Feuerwehr der Welt, Edition 2004); see also: feuerwehrpresse.de

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ High pressure . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 1980 ( online ).
  2. ^ The Telegraph , Aug. 9, 2004

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Adair, Paul Neal
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Adair, Red
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American firefighter and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Houston , Texas
DATE OF DEATH August 7, 2004
Place of death Houston , Texas