>> NARRATOR: These are earth-
shaking fires... a special breed of firefighter
snuffs them: specialists who blow out raging infernos with
explosives, and cap fountains of highly flammable oil or gas
without blowing themselves up. Now "Oil Fire Fighting" on<i>
Modern Marvels.</i> <font color="#FFFF00">Captioning sponsored by
A&E TELEVISION NETWORKS</font> >> NARRATOR: Welcome to
disaster. It doesn't get any worse than a
raging oil or gas well fire. Choking, burning smoke shoots
hundreds of feet into the air. Without protection, the heat can
cook a person's skin several yards from the blaze.
But once it's out, it's even more dangerous, as specialists
work to cap the blowing well under a shower of flammable
crude. Standing beside a blowing well
is like placing your head next to a jet engine-- only louder.
>> JAMES TUPPEN: They're so loud that you put cotton and
Vaseline in your ears and then you shove and earplug in behind
that. >> NARRATOR: Only a handful of
men in the entire world are qualified to put out a fire like
this. >> RED ADAIR: You got to be
careful that nobody makes a mistake, 'cause it's not just
jump in and do this and do that. It's a lot more to it than
people think. >> NARRATOR: Every well fire
presents unique problems, but the basics of the job are always
the same-- put out the fire, and cap the blowing well.
To avoid being incinerated while doing their incredibly dangerous
work, experts use specialized tools and methods perfected over
the last 70 years. >> PAT CAMPBELL: First of all,
you have to gain ready access, safe access, for the people to
do the work. If there was a drilling rig and
it caught fire and has burnt up, it means, first of all, the safe
removal of all that debris from around the well.
>> NARRATOR: Firefighters use bulldozers to drag away the
twisted wreckage of a burned-up rig.
They also use an Athey wagon, an A-frame trailer with a long boom
and a hook on the end, to grab debris.
>> TUPPEN: So we have to take it away a piece at a time,
because if we do put it out, one hot piece of metal could
re-ignite the well. >> NARRATOR: Giant pumps spray a
deluge of water over men and equipment, protecting them from
the intense heat. >> FREDDY GEBHARDT: This is one
of our bigger pumps in our inventory; this is a 5,000
gallons-per-minute pump. You got the engine as your
driver, the transmission and the pump itself.
>> NARRATOR: Often the only thing between these firefighters
and a raging inferno is a one- eighth inch piece of tin.
>> MIKE FOREMEN: Well, out of all the equipment we've got,
from expensive to the cheapest and the smallest thing, this is
probably one of the best friends you can possibly have when
you're on a rig fire. It's a typical corrugated tin.
There's a lot of barns built out of it, same type material.
>> NARRATOR: The shiny, galvanized sheet metal reflects
heat. Firefighters also use it to
protect equipment. >> FOREMEN: As long as you've
got water and you've got a piece of tin, you can stand up and
basically touch the fire. >> NARRATOR: There are many ways
a disaster like a blowing, burning well could ignite: an
errant spark, lightning, or the friction of blowing debris.
It can even happen before a well begins producing.
When sinking a well, drillers may have encountered greater-
than-expected pressure from the oil reservoir trapped
underground, leading to the failure of surface containment
equipment. When the flow of crude is
uncontrolled, that's a blowout. And at any time, that
combustible oil or gas can catch fire.
Traditionally, one of the most effective ways to snuff a fire
has been to literally blow it out using explosives.
>> CAMPBELL: It's simply robbing it of oxygen.
You place that charge just near the base of the flame where the
fluid coming from the well is just becoming oxygen-rich enough
to burn, and that's put in a so- called shot drum, which is
nothing more than either a 55 gallon or a 35 gallon barrel.
(<i> exploding</i> ) >> NARRATOR: The technique of
using explosives to blow out fires has been around since the
1920s. Today, blowout specialists
occasionally still use explosives, but most prefer less
destructive methods. The same water-pumps
firefighters use to cool themselves put out fires, too.
>> RAYMOND HENRY: Today, when you go put 6,000 or 8,000
gallons a minute, you can extinguish just about anything
with that kind of water supply in the right place.
(<i> chuckles</i> ) Takes a lot of the thrill out of
it, but it's a little more practical, really.
>> NARRATOR: But the specialists also have to cap the well.
Sometimes this is done while it's burning if there's
poisonous gas or it poses a larger environmental hazard to
put it out. Many times the team has to cut
off a damaged wellhead before attaching a new control device.
Specialists often use a tool called an abrasive jet cutter to
do this job. The tool uses high-pressure
water mixed with sand to sever the damaged wellhead.
Next, a capping stack with several blowout preventers-- or
B.O.P.s-- is forced over the blowing well and secured to the
pipe. B.O.P.s are also used during
drilling to control well pressure.
This type of B.O.P. uses hydraulic rams that close and
seal off the hole. >> FOREMAN: And when you
actually get the pleasure of shutting the blowout preventers
in, it's the quietest quiet in the world.
It's a very good feeling. >> NARRATOR: Clearly it's a
dangerous line of work, and it always has been.
Thousands of people have died fighting these fires over the
past century and a half. In August, 1859, oil speculator
Edwin Drake drilled the first oil well in the United States.
Two months later, it caught fire.
>> JOE PRATT: Fire becomes a problem in the oil industry as
you soon as you bring oil to the surface.
It's so combustible, and in the rush to develop, they spread oil
all over everything as far as you can see, getting that oil
out as fast as they can, setting the stage for serious fires any
time there's any kind of a spark.
>> NARRATOR: The invention of the automobile further fueled
demand for petroleum exploration.
Huge reserves discovered in places like Beaumont, Texas, in
1901, at Spindletop, ushered in the age of the gusher.
A gusher occurs when drillers hit a greater-than-expected
pocket of oil or gas, and oil shoots back up the wellbore
uncontrolled. To add to the fire hazard, well
owners initially stored oil in open pits before storage tanks
were built. >> PRATT: In the early fields,
all the way into the 1950s, most of the fields burned, in
part at least, when they were developed.
It was just almost impossible to keep this from happening.
>> NARRATOR: But in 1922, Cameron Iron Works invented
the first effective blowout preventer, which reduced
blowouts and made drilling operations safer.
Fewer blowouts meant fewer fires.
Conversely, if a well wasn't producing as much as the owner
thought it was capable of, a specialized workman called a
"torpedo shooter" was called in. Torpedo shooters dropped
explosive nitroglycerin canisters, called torpedoes,
down the well to induce flow. >> HENRY: They would literally
drop that down the wellbore to fracture the rock down there, or
the sand, so that it could produce more.
>> MIKE SHELLMAN: That was an interesting group of men.
I think it was once said that two out of three torpedo
shooters died before they were 30 years old.
It was a terribly dangerous line of work.
>> NARRATOR: One of those daring oil field workers was a shooter
named Karl Kinley. Karl was a widower who worked in
the oil fields of Central California to support his three
children. On April 29th, 1913, Karl was
helping clear a valve off a damaged oil rig from a small
fire. Until this time no one had found
a very effective way of snuffing these fires.
>> SHELLMAN: They felt like they may have a way of controlling
the fire with steam if they were to get the fire going straight
up. And so the procedure called for
using explosives to blow a valve off the well.
>> NARRATOR: Karl loaded some nitroglycerin and carefully
placed it by the rig, but when he detonated the nitro, an
amazing thing happened-- the fire went out.
Moments later the oil reignited. No one thought much of the fire
having gone out, except for Karl's oldest son, Myron, who
was standing nearby. 14-year-old Myron Kinley knew he
had just witnessed something important.
Little did he know he'd seen the birth of a multimillion-dollar
industry he'd soon help create. >> NARRATOR: "Oil Fire Fighting"
will return on<i> Modern Marvels.</i> >> NARRATOR: We now return to
"Oil Fire Fighting" on<i> Modern</i> <i>Marvels.</i>
Myron Kinley, middle school dropout and oil patch shooter's
assistant, almost single-handedly created the
modern oil fire fighting industry.
The concept simmered in his mind after he witnessed his father
inadvertently blow out a well fire using explosives.
But it didn't happen overnight. First, Myron saw action during
the First World War in an artillery unit, gaining
experience on how to set explosive charges.
After the war, he joined his younger brother Floyd in a
marginally successful torpedo shooting business, using
explosives to stimulate well production.
But one event would change the brothers' business plan.
In 1924, Myron and Floyd watched as men struggled for 12 days to
put out a burning well in Cromwell, Oklahoma, using water
and dirt. Remembering Karl's example 11
years earlier, Myron offered to put the fire out in two days for
the then-huge sum of $500. (<i> explosion</i> )
Myron realized his father's earlier torpedo had sucked up
all the available oxygen, suffocating the fire.
If Myron could just build a big enough torpedo, he could blow
out the Cromwell fire and prevent it from immediately
reigniting. The well owner agreed to the
deal without expecting the crazy notion to work, but Myron proved
his theory... (<i> explosion</i> )
...with a terrific explosion. At that moment, he knew he'd
created his new line of work. He soon quit torpedo-shooting
and became a full-time oil well firefighter.
>> SHELLMAN: By 1931, his business had grown to a point
that he moved from Tulsa to Houston, the center of the oil
well service industry. >> NARRATOR: Within a few years,
Myron and Floyd Kinley were legendary.
Oil men all over the world knew to call Kinley if they had a
blowout. The Kinley brothers honed their
technique for dousing and capping fires throughout the
late '20s and '30s. >> SHARON KINLEY OHLAND: When
they worked together, it was a very businesslike atmosphere.
One person was in charge, whether it was my father or my
uncle. They had the utmost respect for
one another. And I think they cared deeply
about one another. >> NARRATOR: The Kinleys found
that relatively lightweight sheets of corrugated galvanized
tin deflected heat better than other materials.
The Kinleys also used hoses to create a constant and drenching
artificial rain, keeping men and equipment from incinerating.
The water also lessened chances of a spark reigniting a snuffed
well. For this reason, the site around
a burning well was always raked clean of debris so that nothing
hot could start another fire. Though the process was slow and
tedious, it meant life or death for the Kinleys.
>> ADAIR: The thing, you got to clear away all the debris away
from the wellhead and protect that wellhead at all times,
'cause that's what you want to work on.
>> NARRATOR: When it came time to actually blow out the well,
Myron packed explosives into a shot canister.
Dynamite caps were inserted into the shot to detonate the load
when they had it where they wanted it.
The canister was then delicately placed next to the burning fire.
Initially, the brothers carried the explosives up to the mouth
of the burning well, set it down under a constant stream of
water, then ran like hell before the canister was detonated.
(<i> explosion</i> ) Of course, the Kinley brothers
were only half-finished when the fire was out.
>> COOTS MATTHEWS: Most people don't understand that getting
rid of the fire's the easiest thing.
Hell, you know? But you got to cap the well,
'cause it's still blowing. It just isn't on fire.
And that's where the work comes in.
>> NARRATOR: Under a spray of volatile oil or gas, the Kinleys
cut off the damaged wellhead. On this well, they used metal
hacksaws. They had to be careful, as any
spark could reignite the well, incinerating the men.
The brothers then installed a new series of valves known as a
Christmas tree. Finally, they shut the new
Christmas tree, capping the gusher.
Myron and Floyd were always careful, but sometimes the
unexpected happened. In 1929, near Gladewater, Texas,
Myron got hurt. >> SHELLMAN: He was hooking a
cable onto debris when his leg was trapped.
He could have very easily burned up had his brother Floyd not
been there very quickly to take him out of that situation.
He saved his life. >> NARRATOR: Myron was fortunate
to escape with only a broken leg.
The brothers discovered the hard way what worked and what didn't.
>> SHELLMAN: They had a monopoly, if you will, on the
business of oil well fire fighting all those years.
>> NARRATOR: But success had its price.
In 1939, the dangers of the profession struck home for the
Kinley family. >> ADAIR: Well, his brother, who
gotten killed out in South Texas somewhere.
Backing off from a drill pipe, and it come loose, and that's
what hit him in the head, and it killed him.
>> NARRATOR: Myron was battling another fire, too far away to
save Floyd the way Floyd had saved him years earlier.
>> SHELLMAN: It was a terrible tragedy for the whole family.
Floyd and Myron were very close. Um, it was a terrible thing.
>> NARRATOR: Myron's wife had the sad task of telling Floyd's
wife the news. >> JOYCE KINLEY KNOBLE: After
dinner, I was sent out with someone to go to a movie so that
Aunt Marguerite would be there, and the house would be quiet.
Mother took that way of telling Aunt Marguerite about the loss
of her husband. Aunt Marguerite thought she was
going to see him, uh, the next day.
You know, go down there and all, and he was dead.
>> NARRATOR: With Floyd dead, Myron needed an experienced
partner to help him with all the business coming his way.
It seemed as if there was nobody else with the skills, bravery
and foolhardiness necessary. That is until the greatest oil
well firefighter who ever lived walked into Myron Kinley's
office looking for a job. "Oil Fire Fighting" will return
on<i> Modern Marvels.</i> >> NARRATOR: We now return to
"Oil Fire Fighting" on<i> Modern</i> <i>Marvels.</i>
Throughout the late 1930s and 1940s, Myron Kinley continued to
use his tried-and-true methods to put oil fires out with
modest technological advances. The introduction of heavy-duty
Caterpillar tractors sped debris-clearing considerably.
In conjunction, Myron modified a logging trailer, known as an
Athey wagon, to suit his needs. >> SHELLMAN: The Athey wagon was
important in the history of the profession, because it allowed
the well control experts to place the charge exactly where
it needed to be placed. And an Athey wagon is simply a
big large boom that can be backed into the fire, and it can
be raised and lowered and manipulated into exactly the
right spot. (<i> explosion</i> )
>> NARRATOR: Athey wagons could also drag away debris.
It's a tool still used today. >> GEBHARDT: This wagon is ready
for transport. You see the A-leg, we call it,
on top? It basically... it folds up
vertically when it's in use. We have a series of block and
tackle that have a one-inch cable that goes to the drum or
winch of a bulldozer. That conveys this boom up and
down. >> NARRATOR: Despite these
advances, putting out oil well fires was still an extremely
dangerous way to make a living in the late 1930s.
No one knew this better than Myron Kinley.
>> SHELLMAN: Myron was working on a oil well fire near Baytown,
Texas. He was loading his shot canister
full of explosives in preparation of being able to
shoot the fire out, and the canister prematurely
went off. >> NARRATOR: Myron survived, but
suffered a severe leg injury and walked with a limp for the rest
of his life. Fortunately, in 1946, Myron
Kinley discovered the best technology he'd ever have:
a 5'6", Houston-born redhead named Paul "Red" Adair.
31-year-old Adair fought in Europe during the Second World
War with an explosives unit. >> ADAIR: We picked up a little
more knowledge with different shape charges in the schooling
you went to in bomb disposal, so it helped me in fighting fires,
too. >> NARRATOR: Red discovered he
could actually shape a charge or direct the charge for a more
efficient explosion, or shot. >> HENRY: In that drum, you've
got, say, 250 pounds of-of dynamite.
You need to put the caps in a proper place so that the
explosion will be directed in the... in the direction that you
want it to go in. You don't put the deal in the
middle and just blow it up. (<i> laughs</i> )
>> NARRATOR: Myron saw, as they worked together, that Red had an
instinct, a talent for explosives.
>> ADAIR: There's an art to handling explosives.
There's a different way you have to use it.
>> NARRATOR: Working with Red in the shadow of a roaring, blowing
well, Myron devised a communication system based on
hand signals. >> SHELLMAN: At first, Mr.
Adair actually went on jobs with Myron, and then as more and more
work came about, it was necessary for the two of them to
split up occasionally, much like Myron did with his brother
Floyd. >> NARRATOR: Red Adair soon
outshined the older, injury- wracked Myron Kinley.
And he began to develop his own style for putting out fires.
The hellish nature of their occupation drew the two men
together. >> JOYCE KINLEY KNOBLE: He liked
him a lot. There was a lot of camaraderie.
There were jokes, there was... there were good feelings between
them, and there had to be a great deal of trust.
>> SHELLMAN: I think Myron Kinley in many ways thought of
Red Adair as a son, and the two of them were very close.
>> NARRATOR: But Myron was unwilling to give up fighting
fires entirely, or give over the company to his protégé.
In 1951, as Myron curtailed his own schedule, Red hired "Boots"
Hanson, a former field hand, to work as an assistant.
>> BOOTS HANSON: I went with Mr. Kinley because he was crippled,
and one thing and another. He'd been in it longer than Red,
and had a way that he did a job. And when I worked for Red, I
learned how to do it a different way, and a lot of times it was a
whole lot easier. >> NARRATOR: In 1958, Coots
Matthews, a worker for the Haliburton Oil Field Services
Company, joined the Kinley Company as another assistant.
>> COOTS MATTHEWS: Boots and I were their helpers, and that's
how it rotated. Sometimes you went out with Mr.
Kinley and sometimes you went out with Red.
It's just how it fell, you know? >> NARRATOR: Also in 1958, Myron
attempted to put out a monster of a fire in Iran called Ahwaz.
Despite all his experience and his best efforts, Myron couldn't
kill the fire. While making a second attempt at
blowing the fire out, he suffered a mild heart attack.
Physically and emotionally exhausted, 62-year-old Myron
called for Red back in Texas for help.
>> ADAIR: He come up to me and said, "I think we met our
match." I said, "Oh, no, we can get it."
So, we built up a big horseshoe- shaped charge.
>> NARRATOR: Red crafted a charge in the shape of a
horseshoe to fit around the mouth of the well.
He had five failures. Then, success.
>> ADAIR: Boy, and he was happy. "Got it this time."
And Boots and I capped it. >> NARRATOR: Despite his heart
attack in Iran, Myron was still not ready to retire.
But Red Adair was ready to move on.
In 1959, Red abruptly left the M. M. Kinley Company and formed
his own oil fire fighting company, taking Boots Hanson
with him. Coots Matthews followed within a
year. For the first time, the Kinley
Company had real competition. Two legitimate oil fire fighting
companies now competed for business.
>> KNOBLE: I think my father was disappointed and hurt perhaps,
not so much that Red left him, left the company, because I
think that was inevitable. But I think it was somehow,
something happened in the way it was done that hurt my father.
I think he wished him well, and once it was over, I think it was
all right with him. >> NARRATOR: Myron Kinley, the
man who almost single-handedly created the methods and
techniques for fighting oil well fires, continued fighting fires
on his own. He finally retired in 1962 at
age 66. Myron spent his remaining years
developing well service tools. Red Adair spent his time
becoming the most famous oil well firefighter who ever lived,
putting out the biggest oil well fires the world had ever seen.
"Oil Fire Fighting" will return on<i> Modern Marvels.</i>
>> NARRATOR: We now return to "Oil Fire Fighting" on<i> Modern
Marvels.</i> In 1962, Red Adair, Boots Hanson
and Coots Matthews were facing down a monster of a gas well
fire in Algeria called "The Devil's Cigarette Lighter."
>> SHELLMAN: That was a tremendous fire.
One that went on for several months, and it was so large and
so ferocious that, really, most people didn't think it could
ever be controlled. >> NARRATOR: This roaring giant
shot flames and smoke 800 feet into the air, as 550 million
cubic feet of gas spewed out each day in the scorching desert
heat. The pressure was so great, men
had to be careful not to be sucked up into the flames.
>> ADAIR: And it was the biggest one.
She would flare out and try to pick you off the ground, so much
volume was coming out. >> NARRATOR: The fire would be a
showcase for the techniques and tools Myron invented and Red
perfected. Without access to water, the men
had to drill for it. To hold the water, they dug
three pits, each about the size of a football field and ten feet
deep. Red's team cooled the site with
high pressure water cannons, and protected the equipment with
corrugated tin. Red's men used an Athey wagon
and bulldozers to pull away the debris of the burned-up rig.
After several months of preparation, they were finally
ready to shoot out the fire with nitroglycerin charges.
>> ADAIR: We shot it out with 750 pounds of 100 percent
glycerin. >> NARRATOR: Now that the well
was no longer burning, the men attempted to cap it.
Red employed a sandline cutter-- a tool he had been
using for several years. The sandline cutter was a
sand/resin coated cable looped around the wellhead.
Winches on opposite sides pulled the cable back and forth,
cutting the wellhead off like a band saw.
The men then forced a blowout preventer over the blowing well,
and secured it to the pipe-- a delicate operation-- when even
static electricity could re- ignite the well and kill
everyone around. Finally, after six months, The
Devil's Cigarette Lighter stopped roaring.
The amazing feat captured the world's attention, and propelled
Red Adair to international celebrity.
Red made television appearances, and Hollywood even produced the
movie<i> Hellfighters,</i> starring John Wayne, which was loosely
based on Red's life. In between Red's celebrity
appearances, he joined Boots and Coots in putting out fires.
These jobs sent them in all directions.
On one occasion, Coots traveled with Red overseas to put out a
well fire in Africa. >> MATTHEWS: Red, before we
could get on the airplane going down to the desert, down to
Algiers, well, we got another job in Mexico, and hell, I
turned around and got back on the airplane.
>> NARRATOR: But when he landed in New York, Coots learned that
the fire in Mexico had gone out, and he wasn't needed anymore.
>> MATTHEWS: So, I got back on the airplane and headed back to
Paris, and I just got seated on that damned plane, and this girl
asked me was that my first transatlantic crossing, and I
said, "Well, if I make it, it will be my third one this day."
And she thought I was a nut. She never asked me another
damned question after that, but it was the truth.
>> NARRATOR: Despite the camaraderie developed from years
of risking their lives together, Boots Hanson and Coots Matthews
abruptly departed the Red Adair company in 1978.
>> SHELLMAN: Their business immediately took off and became
very successful. >> HANSON: He said, "What are we
going to name the company?" And I said we got to call it
Boots & Coots. And he said, "How about Coots &
Boots?" (<i> laughing</i> )
Of course, the "B" comes before the "C," so he was the
president. >> MATTHEWS: Which wasn't a very
good honor, either. >> NARRATOR: But they weren't
Red's only competition. In 1975, with 23 years of
experience as a drilling engineer, Joe Bowden Sr. started
Wild Well Control in Houston. Bowden's Wild Well Control would
grow to become one of the most successful band of blowout
specialists in the world. By the late 1980s, more than
half a dozen fire fighting companies had formed to meet the
demand of the industry worldwide.
With the next generation of firefighters ready to take over,
Red, Boots and Coots might have been contemplating retirement.
But they'd have to wait just a little longer.
In March of 1991, Sadaam Hussein created the mother of all oil
well fires. Iraqi soldiers, retreating out
of occupied Kuwait during the Gulf War, set every oil well
they could find on fire. The country was one gigantic,
fiery blowout. The world turned to Texas for
help. >> ADAIR: We flew all over to
look it over and when you first got in it was a heck of a bad-
looking sight. >> CAMPBELL: Even all of us that
have worked on well fires and blowouts all our whole life, uh,
no one ever saw hundreds of wells burning at a single time.
>> NARRATOR: Experts estimated it might take as long as ten
years to put out all the fires and stop the environmental
devastation. But the fires weren't their
only concern. >> MATTHEWS: Well, when a well
wasn't on fire, it would be, uh, oil would be foot-and-a-half
deep all around it and you didn't know what you're stepping
on. They had land mines everywhere.
(<i> detector squawking</i> ) >> NARRATOR: But despite the
dangers of a former war zone and the hellish appearance of the
landscape, the firefighters soon realized that this inferno might
be easier to extinguish than they originally thought.
Hussein's men had blown off the tops of the wells which set them
on fire, but left the structure underneath the surface
relatively intact. The introduction of the first
new fire fighting tool in decades also made the job
easier. >> JIM LaGRONE: Most of the
equipment that we use on a day- to-day basis has been around
since the '20s. There's no new technology
except for the hydraulic jet cutter that was developed during
the first Gulf War. And you can cut a wellhead off
now in 30 minutes as opposed to 30 hours.
>> NARRATOR: The abrasive jet cutter uses high pressure jets
of water mixed with sand to physically sandblast through the
metal with 10,000 pounds per square inch of pressure.
The abrasive jet cutter, invented by the Halliburton
Company, was a new tool the industry desperately needed.
The Texas companies were joined by a top Canadian company,
Safety Boss. But the overwhelming scope of
the disaster encouraged other less experienced international
teams to get involved. They achieved far more success
gaining publicity than they did putting out fires.
A Hungarian company came with a jet engine rig to literally blow
out fires. >> ADAIR: Hey, that was funny,
comical. They called it a big wind.
That's what it was. >> MATTHEWS That jet engine,
it got all the publicity about what all it did over there
and... and the actual truth was, it put out three small fires and
it took quite a while to do that.
>> NARRATOR: In the meantime, the big four knocked fires down
and capped wells. >> ADAIR: We'd get four and five
wells a day. That's how we got through it so
quick. >> NARRATOR: The disaster that
threatened to last a decade was out within six months.
Red, Boots and Coots made a fortune putting fires out
in Kuwait, a suitable cap to their long and illustrious
careers. "Oil Fire Fighting" will return
on<i> Modern Marvels.</i> >> NARRATOR: We now return to
"Oil Fire Fighting" on<i> Modern</i> <i>Marvels.</i>
Beaumont, Texas. These firefighters are at the
opposite end of the petroleum business, not at a well but at a
processing unit. A huge explosion has ripped
open a local refinery. The resulting fire threatens to
destroy the rest of the plant. They've got a one-two punch to
knock this fire out. First, they hit the inferno
with water and foam... then apply a purple punch of dry
chemical. Within minutes, the fire's out.
>> DWIGHT WILLIAMS: It may take you six or eight hours to rig
up, but when you attacked it, it's over quick or you're doing
something wrong. >> NARRATOR: Fortunately this
refinery fire is just a simulation.
It's being conducted at the Center for Industrial Fire and
Hazardous Materials Training at Beaumont's Lamar University.
Here a different breed of firefighter learns how to put
out a different type of fire. In an industrial situation,
firefighters could face both a pressure fire-- a liquid fire
in motion and sometimes under pressure-- and a static fire,
such as a tank fire. Fortunately these guys are
learning from one of the best, Dwight Williams, of Williams
Fire and Hazard Control. >> WILLIAMS: There's been a
couple of fires that I said, "You're either gonna kill me,
or I'm gonna kill you." And it's come to that.
>> NARRATOR: Dwight's been fighting fires since the 1970s.
His specialty is killing storage tank fires, the biggest ones on
record. One of the most dangerous
events Dwight may face during a storage tank fire is the
possibility of a boilover. During a torrential storm, the
weight of rainwater can sometimes cause a floating roof
to fail, exposing the oil inside.
A boilover may occur when a crude oil storage tank burns out
of control for hours. The boiling oil on top creates
a hot thermal wave which sinks and reaches a layer of water
near the bottom of the tank, essentially causing a steam
explosion. >> CAMPBELL: So rather than the
fuel burning inside the walls of the tank on the surface of the
fluid, it will cause that to basically erupt and expel or
eject all of the fuel that's in there all over everything, and
then generally involves many more because there are lots and
lots of storage tanks near each other.
>> NARRATOR: The objective is to put the fire out before a boil-
over occurs. To do that Williams Fire has
developed a host of tools and techniques.
>> WILLIAMS: The best protective clothing that you can buy is
distance. We like to kill fires long
distance. We like to do it with the
artillery. >> NARRATOR: These are Williams'
big guns: trailer-mounted water cannons, or monitors, capable of
delivering up to 6,000 gallons of water per minute.
>> CHAUNCEY NAYLOR: The nozzle and monitor package itself is on
a quick action package where we can move it vertically, uh, with
just one person. And it will go 360 degrees
around. We mix foam here at the nozzle
with the water to make a foam solution delivered as a finished
foam. It's got the ability to flow
1,000 through 6,000 gallons per minute and it's portable.
>> NARRATOR: The foam concentrate contains a
detergent-like hydrocarbon surfactant.
>> NAYLOR: When it lands, it actually runs across the surface
of the flammable liquid fire. It blankets that flammable
liquid fire to the point where it suppresses vapor and occludes
the oxygen, so we don't get that vapor-air mixture and have a
continuous burning. Once we eliminate the oxygen
from the surface of that fire and suppress the vapors, the
fire goes out. >> NARRATOR: Besides foam,
Williams Fire also uses a dry chemical called PKW for the
final punch. The dry chemical temporarily
interrupts the chain reaction of the combustion process of a
fire. It has a purple dye so
firefighters can easily see it in the stream of water.
>> NAYLOR: This is PKW, the dry chemical of choice for Williams
Fire and Hazard Control. We use it whenever we need a
chemical to eliminate a pressure fire.
This is a very fine powder. Uh, it's introduced through our
hydrochem nozzle into our foam stream to eliminate that
chemical chain reaction. >> NARRATOR: Firefighters shoot
both foam and dry chemical through the high-pressure water
cannons. But killing many fires requires
hand-to-hand combat. If this is their heavy
artillery, then this is their bayonet.
>> WILLIAMS: The water foam solution comes in here and it
goes out here, around this little pipe.
The valve for it is marked "water-foam," and you open it
first, and you start knocking the fire down.
Once the fire gets knocked down, you visualize exactly
where your pressure fires are, as you get ready to shoot them
out, you simply pop them and shoot them out.
>> NARRATOR: In the early days, firefighters often couldn't stop
storage tank fires and they burned to exhaustion.
Before specialists, thousands of firefighters working for the
refineries dealt with those dangerous fires in the course of
their normal jobs, without notoriety or lots of money.
>> PRATT: When I was growing up in Port Neches,
Texas, my father got a job as a fireman.
When you'd hear those sirens you'd know something had
occurred and my first thought would be, "Okay, will my dad
make it through this?" And my second thought would be,
"Are any of my friend's fathers involved?" because in our
schools all the fathers worked in the refineries, so there
would always be a couple of fathers missing who had been
killed in refinery explosions. >> NARRATOR: In the 20th century
several innovations helped decrease the chances of fire,
including separating the refinery from the storage tanks.
Also, the introduction of floating roofs which went up and
down with the level of product inside kept explosive vapors
from accumulating. Putting out a large tank fire
takes experience, guts and a little guesswork.
Success could've made these guys a bit arrogant in the face of a
fire. Not Dwight.
He has plenty of respect for it and knows when it's time to
get back. >> WILLIAMS: There's nothing
exciting about going to meet your maker a little prematurely.
I mean, I'd really like to see Him, but I want to do it later
in my years. >> NARRATOR: Whether it's well
fires... or refinery fires...
the firefighters who put out these infernos are like none
other. Sure they use modern tools and
technologies, but there's also a little something extra--
part intuition, part bravery and a bit Texas bravado.
Given half a chance, these guys could probably put out Hell
itself. <font color="#FFFF00">Captioning sponsored by
A&E TELEVISION NETWORKS</font> Captioned by<font color="#00FFFF">
Media Access Group at WGBH</font> access.wgbh.org
