Question: What Texan achieved international acclaim for his expertise in capping oil well blowouts, including one in Algeria known as the Devil’s Cigarette Lighter in 1962?
Answer: Paul Neal “Red” Adair. Born in Houston in 1915, he was part of a bomb disposal unit in the U.S. Army during World War II, after which he pioneered—with Myron Kinley—the use of explosives to extinguish fires with shaped charges. Over the course of his career, he helped put out more than 2,000 fires from land-based and offshore oil well blowouts, including those ignited in Kuwait by retreating Iraqi troops during the 1991 Gulf War.
