WEBVTT 00:00:00.309 --> 00:00:02.609 line:65% Algeria, nineteen sixty-two. 00:00:02.904 --> 00:00:05.579 line:65% A gas well has been burning for months. 00:00:05.654 --> 00:00:09.229 line:65% At the edge of the site, a helicopter waits on standby. 00:00:09.494 --> 00:00:11.369 line:65% Beside it is a coffin. 00:00:11.444 --> 00:00:14.175 line:65% The crew's leader later recalled that precaution. 00:00:15.002 --> 00:00:18.862 line:65% Now this is something we never had to use and proud we didn't. 00:00:23.132 --> 00:00:24.732 line:65% That was Red Adair. 00:00:24.832 --> 00:00:30.668 line:65% At Gassi Touil, a well called G-T-two is feeding a flame above the wreckage of its 00:00:30.668 --> 00:00:31.397 line:65% drilling rig. 00:00:31.577 --> 00:00:35.642 line:65% His crew must put out the fire, then regain control of the well. 00:00:36.289 --> 00:00:39.939 line:65% Boots Hansen had served in the Navy's submarine force. 00:00:40.014 --> 00:00:45.428 line:65% Back in Houston, he painted signs with his father and drove stock cars for Red 00:00:45.428 --> 00:00:45.789 line:65% Adair. 00:00:46.034 --> 00:00:48.378 line:65% Then he went to work fighting well fires. 00:00:48.882 --> 00:00:53.577 line:65% Here is Hansen in a later interview, recorded in nineteen seventy-nine. 00:00:53.958 --> 00:00:56.698 line:65% And I've been doing this kind of work twenty-seven years. 00:00:57.587 --> 00:01:03.002 line:65% Coots was Ed Matthews, a trained machinist who had worked for Reed Bit Company. 00:01:03.052 --> 00:01:08.260 line:65% He spent ten years with Halliburton, working as a roughneck, cementer and 00:01:08.260 --> 00:01:09.128 line:65% special-tools operator. 00:01:09.702 --> 00:01:13.477 line:65% Both had worked in Myron Kinley's firefighting business. 00:01:13.552 --> 00:01:17.502 line:65% In nineteen sixty-two, they are members of Adair's crew. 00:01:17.577 --> 00:01:20.470 line:65% The Boots and Coots company is still years away. 00:01:21.111 --> 00:01:25.056 line:65% Back at Gassi Touil, another rig drills for water. 00:01:25.156 --> 00:01:29.456 line:65% Crews dig storage pits and run supply lines across the site. 00:01:29.721 --> 00:01:33.994 line:65% That water has to keep flowing while men and machines work beside the fire. 00:01:34.632 --> 00:01:38.457 line:65% Caterpillar D-eight tractors carry protective housings. 00:01:38.557 --> 00:01:43.782 line:65% Water monitors stand behind sheet-metal shields, with their nozzles aimed toward 00:01:43.782 --> 00:01:44.732 line:65% the fire. 00:01:44.832 --> 00:01:49.264 line:65% As the water starts flowing, men move into the spray to reach the wreckage. 00:01:49.947 --> 00:01:52.997 line:65% Hot metal can reignite escaping gas. 00:01:53.047 --> 00:01:57.242 line:65% The crew has to clear the wreckage and protect the wellhead while it works. 00:01:57.975 --> 00:02:02.000 line:65% A long boom reaches into the wreckage with a water-cooled hook. 00:02:02.125 --> 00:02:05.400 line:65% Sections of the drilling rig are dragged out of the heat. 00:02:05.475 --> 00:02:09.866 line:65% The drilling derrick, the mud tank, the pump: equipment that once helped drill the 00:02:09.866 --> 00:02:12.689 line:65% well now has to be pulled away from it. 00:02:13.257 --> 00:02:17.532 line:65% The noise makes ordinary conversation useless close to the fire. 00:02:17.777 --> 00:02:20.402 line:65% A raised hand becomes an instruction. 00:02:20.502 --> 00:02:24.827 line:65% Someone signals for a valve to open; another man acts on it. 00:02:24.902 --> 00:02:29.905 line:65% In Adair's account, those hand signals are how the crew gets the job done over the 00:02:29.905 --> 00:02:30.218 line:65% roar. 00:02:30.908 --> 00:02:36.261 line:65% Among the men is Charlie Tolar, a professional football player with the Houston 00:02:36.261 --> 00:02:36.673 line:65% Oilers. 00:02:36.773 --> 00:02:40.598 line:65% French workers and engineers are part of the operation too. 00:02:40.673 --> 00:02:45.347 line:65% At the entrance, a board tracks personnel moving through the work area and toward 00:02:45.347 --> 00:02:46.015 line:65% the well. 00:02:46.615 --> 00:02:51.615 line:65% In April, the extinguishing attempt is postponed, then postponed again. 00:02:51.910 --> 00:02:55.910 line:65% The preparations continue while G-T-two keeps burning. 00:02:56.010 --> 00:02:59.484 line:65% At last, the crew moves in with the explosive charge. 00:03:00.192 --> 00:03:02.917 line:65% The machine carries the charge toward the well. 00:03:03.177 --> 00:03:05.421 line:65% The crew places it and withdraws. 00:03:09.357 --> 00:03:10.757 line:65% The flame is gone. 00:03:10.807 --> 00:03:12.332 line:65% The gas keeps coming. 00:03:12.382 --> 00:03:16.950 line:65% The crew now has to replace the damaged equipment while the well is still blowing. 00:03:17.928 --> 00:03:23.421 line:65% A dragline digs around the wellhead until the crew can reach sound pipe below the 00:03:23.421 --> 00:03:24.153 line:65% damaged equipment. 00:03:24.253 --> 00:03:28.753 line:65% Water stays on the work as the excavation exposes hot ground. 00:03:28.828 --> 00:03:31.303 line:65% The old head is damaged and crooked. 00:03:31.378 --> 00:03:34.396 line:65% It has to come off while gas continues to escape. 00:03:35.226 --> 00:03:38.601 line:65% Men work beside the stream of gas with goggles on. 00:03:38.896 --> 00:03:43.818 line:65% They strip away sections of pipe and use cutting equipment to get the damaged head 00:03:43.818 --> 00:03:44.146 line:65% off. 00:03:44.221 --> 00:03:49.745 line:65% The machinery, the casing, and the men are all crowded into the same small working 00:03:49.745 --> 00:03:50.113 line:65% area. 00:03:50.565 --> 00:03:55.015 line:65% The operator's drilling engineer, Le Blanc, stays with the job. 00:03:55.115 --> 00:03:57.565 line:65% Adair singles him out in his account. 00:03:57.640 --> 00:04:02.004 line:65% Together, the crews are exposing the connection that will take the replacement 00:04:02.004 --> 00:04:02.368 line:65% equipment. 00:04:02.947 --> 00:04:07.968 line:65% The replacement head must seal around the pipe and grip it tightly enough to stay 00:04:07.968 --> 00:04:08.972 line:65% put under pressure. 00:04:09.022 --> 00:04:12.610 line:65% The crew assembles and checks it before taking it to the well. 00:04:13.388 --> 00:04:17.463 line:65% A boom supports the head as lines pull it down over the pipe. 00:04:17.538 --> 00:04:21.663 line:65% The crew works the assembly into place against the escaping gas. 00:04:21.738 --> 00:04:26.020 line:65% Then comes the blowout preventer: the equipment that gives them a means of 00:04:26.020 --> 00:04:27.338 line:65% shutting the flow path. 00:04:27.965 --> 00:04:31.415 line:65% The crew fastens the connections beside the flowing well. 00:04:31.540 --> 00:04:33.990 line:65% Safety engineers check for gas. 00:04:34.065 --> 00:04:39.214 line:65% The head and preventer are in place; the next step is to close the upward path and 00:04:39.214 --> 00:04:40.123 line:65% divert the flow. 00:04:40.712 --> 00:04:45.712 line:65% The crew closes the preventer, directing the gas into controlled flow lines. 00:04:45.812 --> 00:04:48.212 line:65% Red Adair narrates the moment himself. 00:04:49.187 --> 00:04:51.747 line:65% And this is what you waited six months to do. 00:04:52.742 --> 00:04:55.292 line:65% Mud is then part of securing the well. 00:04:55.367 --> 00:05:00.092 line:65% Its weight can provide pressure inside the hole to oppose the reservoir. 00:05:00.142 --> 00:05:04.675 line:65% The surface equipment controls the opening; the fluid helps control what is 00:05:04.675 --> 00:05:05.431 line:65% feeding it. 00:05:06.132 --> 00:05:11.858 line:65% By nineteen sixty-eight, Adair, Boots and Coots were technical advisers on John 00:05:11.858 --> 00:05:12.812 line:65% Wayne's Hellfighters. 00:05:12.887 --> 00:05:17.222 line:65% In nineteen seventy-eight, Boots and Coots opened their own company. 00:05:17.542 --> 00:05:23.274 line:65% Matthews's obituary recounts a coin toss: Coots became president, and Boots's name 00:05:23.274 --> 00:05:24.229 line:65% went first.