'Hellfighters' — Applied Chemistry 101: Principles of Oil Well Fires and Blowouts

Professor Red Adair, presiding.

This 1968 film, starring John Wayne as Red Adair and made with the assistance of Adair and his team, is truly a piece of work.

Wayne said, "I've made a lot of action movies, but never one as exciting as 'Hellfighters.'"

Basic principle of putting out an oil well fire: starve it of oxygen and it'll go out.

To do this, however, requires an exquisitely choreographed, individually tailored series of very high risk maneuvers which include:

1) Directing heavy streams of water at the fire while removing all metal and debris from the wellhead.

2) Placing a large quantity of nitroglycerin wrapped in asbestos cloth under heavy irrigation by high pressure/volume hoses directly over the wellhead with a long-armed crane.

3) Exiting the cabin of the crane and running like hell away from the well and jumping into a ditch to avoid the explosion that will ensue once the water stops wetting the asbestos and the wellhead fire ignites the explosives, the subsequent bang sucking up all the available oxygen (if everything went according to plan) and putting out the fire, leaving just the oil gushing out.

4) Quickly moving a cap into position, aligning it on the wellhead and securing it, then closing off the flow. Special attention is paid to not creating a spark which could immolate the men at the wellhead in a Texas minute.

You could do a lot worse for $3.99 (on YouTube).