Posted on 04/01/2010 3:59:31 PM PDT by deport
E.O. “Coots” Matthews, the famed oil well firefighter and founding partner of Houston-based Boots & Coots — a company legendary for putting out some of the world’s most spectacular fires — died at an advanced age on Wednesday of natural causes.
Matthews, whose age was not immediately available, [86 by another article] was raised in Porter. He began his oil field career with Halliburton in 1947, after serving as a tail gunner on a B-17 during World War II in Europe.
Later that year, he joined M.M. Kinley Co., where he met Asger “Boots” Hansen and Red Adair to develop firefighting and control methods to prevent oil well blowouts. The trio later became the sooted faces of the so-called “hellfighting” business.
Known as rabble rousers who never stood down during a good barroom brawl, Matthews and Hansen followed Adair to his eponymous company in the early 1960s. Their exploits fighting oil and gas fires inspired the 1968 movie Hellfighters starring John Wayne. ....
Matthews and Hansen left the Red Adair Co. to found Boots & Coots in 1978, for reasons purportedly having to do with pay.....
Following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991, Boots & Coots got the call to help extinguish some 700 well fires in Kuwaiti oil fields.
A few years later, Matthews and Hanson sold Boots & Coots to employees. It now is called Boots & Coots International Well Control.
end snips
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Awesome men, look what we have to live up to!
Rest in peace ‘Coots’ Matthews.
I lived in Yokosuka, Japan when “Hellfighters” came out. One of the really cool things about the officer’s club there was that on Sunday night (I think) they would have a big roast beef buffet, then...they would turn out the lights, you could have dessert and they would show a movie.
My mom and dad would take all six of us there, where we could eat all we wanted, and one night they showed “Hellfighters”.
I don’t remember if it was a good or bad movie, but I know I remembered it for many years afterwards.
They went bankrupt about 9 years ago and left several freight
forwarders hanging, to eat the cost of moving equipment around the planet.
Company I worked for got stiffed, big time.
They came out of it, though, and are still going strong.
We gave 'em another shot, all is well. Fun stuff to ship, they have.
..he might have made it to 90 if he slowed down a bit back then...*hats off* to a special breed...RIP
I imagine he considered it a fair trade off.
Red Adair, Boots Hansen and Coots Matthews
Red Adair died at age 89, Coots at age 84 and don't know
about Boots if he's deceased or still living.
Click for video about 4 minutes
Video of about 9 minutes with more detail narrated by Red Adair
There’s an old joke here in Texas.
A Texan died and went to heaven. St. Peter was showing the Texan around and everything he showed the man, the man claimed Texas had something as good or better.
St Peter got sick of hearing this and took the man to the edge of Heaven and showed him the fires of hell. He said to the man, “Do you have anything like that in Texas?”
The Texas looked for a couple of seconds and said, “No we don’t. But there are a couple of good old boys in Houston that can put that out for uou.”
:)..I’m sure
“Boots and Coots” is the best name of a company ever
Boot’n’Coots been hiring recently, too.
RIP.
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