Myron and Red

Red Adair, left, with the heat shield; Myron Kinley on the immediate right

I have this photo in my 'Kinley' files but I think I have seen it on the internet as well. I place this time frame around 1947-1948. Red is young and has not been with Myron more than two years or so on a full time basis. The other fellas in the canvas fire suits with the Halloween hoods might be rig hands, often employed to help in these kinds of situations. The fella on the far right is dragging back a low pressure water hose used to keep the men cool while working close in to the fire. The tin shield Red is carrying is still built and used today around oil well fires.This photo would have been taken in the first few years of Red's 13 years with Myron Kinley, where Kinley taught him a lot of the tricks of the blowout trade.

Red left Myron in 1958 to form the Red Adair Company. I was fortunate enough to have helped produce a documentary with the History Channel in 2004 and we aired that episode shortly after Red passed away. It was not an easy task getting Red interviewed for the film; there was still some animosity between him and Boots Hansen from the manner in which Boots and Coots were "let go" in 1978. In the end it was all good and I am honored to have helped get that all arranged.

I have some 8MM film of Myron Kinley on a job somewhere in East Texas, sometime between 1930-1932. In the job he can be seen up close to this blowing well wearing a football helmet, with a face guard, and there was a tin hard hat bolted to the top of the helmet. It was quite a site, very Kinley-like. I have long hoped that helmet would turn up somewhere, but it hasn't. It belongs in a museum.