During his career from 1959 to 1993, who battled more than 2,000 fires in oil and natural gas wells, notably 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) flame?
Red Adair V-shaped charge of high explosives (the Munroe effect being used during the war and used in bazookas and the atom bomb), the high velocity blast of which would snuff the fire. He founded Red Adair Co. Inc. in 1959, and over the course of his career battled more than 2,000 land and offshore oil well, natural gas well, and similar spectacular fires. Adair gained global attention in 1962 when he tackled a fire at the Gassi Touil gas field in the Algerian Sahara nicknamed the Devil's Cigarette Lighter, a pillar of flame that burned from 12:00 PM November 13, 1961
Devil's Cigarette Lighter "Hellfighters" was loosely based upon the feats of Adair during the 1962 Sahara Desert fire. Devil's Cigarette Lighter The Devil's Cigarette Lighter was a natural gas well fire at Gassi Touil in the Sahara Desert of Algeria. Ignited when a pipe ruptured on November 6, 1961, the Phillips Petroleum Company-owned well produced more than of natural gas per second, whose flame rose between and . The flame was seen from orbit by John Glenn during the flight of "Friendship 7" on February 20, 1962. The blowout and fire were estimated to have consumed enough gas to supply Paris for three