Evening Star Newspaper, November 30, 1930, Page 89

l\/I_us_ic Art PART ' 7. \ he Sunday Staf filaga;ine‘ WASHINGTON, D. C., NOVEMBER 30, 1930. 24 PAGES. WILD GUSHERS of FIRE There’s Trouble Ahead When an Oil Gusher or a “Gasser” Catches Fire—For It Often Takes Days of Perilous Hard Work to Conquer One of These Raging Man-Made V olcanoes. RIVER of fire, stretching for miles through the prairie, with its whirlpools of flame, crashing and thundering through heavy billows of smqke. that from a distance looked like heavy rain clouds, and its is- lands of more intense flames, .whirling and swinging now and then against the brink to send dried grass and trees up in smoke—such was the spectacle which thousands of inhabitants of Central Oklahoma witnessed a few Sundays ago. The scene was the Canadian River at a point a few miles frcm Oklahoma City, where for two days the Morgan Petroleum Co.’s wild oil gusher, the Stout No. 1, dubbed “Stout Fella” by the oil men. had flooded the countryside with crude oil and coated the near-by stream with a highly inflammable scum. The inevitable had happened; the river and caught on fire, but at a safe distance from the wel’. ~nere it was, this “Stout Feila,” pouring out oil at the rate of 60,000 barrels a day, roaring with the energy of a thousand earth devils, spurting its purple-black cloud high into the air and raining oil for 10 miles to the leeward. The black stuff fell onto the group of workmen gathered around the base of the derrick and on the surrounding terrain, huddling in pools for a second and tHen hurrying off to feed the ever- mounting wall of flame that stretched through the country- side. “ortunately the current of ‘the river carried the flame farther and farther from the well, never allowing it to creep backward to ignite the gusher ‘and turn it into a spout of liquid fire. Pire and river fought a ceaseless battle. As the oil gathered in spots in the eddying current of the stream and flames burst into the air it seemed at times as if the fire .would win; but the tricky river quickly dissipated the source of supply, only to collected it into another flaming geyser a few miles down the stream. The thousands of curious who lined the banks on both sides of the river often were forced to draw back in haste as the curreng swung one of these columns landward. Here and there along the river feeble blazes, divorced from the main body of the fire, struggled to clamber up the steep bank into the underbrush. For 90 miles in every direction farmers and citizens of the smaller towns gazed at the towering black smoke and reckoned that Okla- homa City’s big oil fire had come at last. Over in the State House sec- tion of Oklahoma City, where the city’s oil millionaires have built rows of expensive homes with the wealth which came to them so suddenly, these same millionaires kept one apprehensive eye on the distant smoke and the other on their homes. Their expensive lawns were soaked in oil and their garages were so coated with slime that they looked like patent leather houses. They wondered how long it would be before they could light fires again—they feared even to light a cigar, lest this very oil which had rescued them from agricultural poverty should suddenly become a raging terror that would destroy their castles. Down on the “flats” at the well a crew of 80 or so oil-soaked “roughnecks,” their feet and hands already blistered by the irritating crude oil, battled with the roaring monster that threatened at every minute to engulf them in flames. Several hours before they had been called from the well by the siren shrieks that warned of a near-by blaze. It had been quenched, and they hurried back to resume the big job of placing the “bonnet” over the roaring column. Slowly this “bonnet”—a two-ton piece of metal—was lowered over the casing head and the workmen rushed in with long iron poles to screw it on. Finally it was fast, the master gates were closed and for the first time in 66 hours the oil and gas ceased flowing. ‘The workmen clambered down the slick pipes to the Brawn for The Star'§ Sunday Magezine by Harry Pisk. The burning oil or gas well is the terror of the oil fields. By Frank Harrel. derrick floor. They gave a feeble cheer, though spent by days and nights of ceaseless work, and then hurried to the bunkhouse to get a bit of rest and to smoke a cigarette, a comfort they had not known for hours. They lay down with their boots on, fearful that they would be called out again almost any minute by a roar that would shake the neighborhood as the “Stout Fella” again broke its leashes. Had the “Stout Fella” caught on fire the Southwest perhaps would have had its worst oil fire. Only expert engineering and mirac- ulous good luck prevented the holocaust that might have killed a score of workmen and threatened thousands of hemes, The South- west has had hundreds of oil-and gas fires the heroic exploits involved in extingu them have became as commonplace to the%il fraternity as daring feats of life saving are our city firemen. But never has it seen gusher like the “Stout Fella” go up in smoke, and the citizens of Oklahoma City, fairly trem- bling as they envision the havoc that might have been wrought, avow that they never do want to see such a big one catch on fire. But oll and gas fires are actualities in the ell fields, and extinguishing them calls for the \ utmost daring and courage on the part of the ol field crews. Within the last year two “gassers” in the Oklahoma City field burned three and seven days, respectively. Out in California the Kettleman pool and the Santa Fe Springs pool have been notorious for oil and gas fires, having even had two burning at one time. Down in the Seminole fleld, in Oklahoma, the Little River gas blowouts were the fiercest that oil men have ever encountered, and at Monroe, in Louisiana, and E1 Dorado, in Arkansas, citizens have spent terrifying nights while valiant firefighters have strug- gled to snuff but giant earth candles. Usually the oil companies use every means at their command to put out their fires before cailing in expert aid. More than likely they are successful, unless some unusual situation exists. When the engineer reaches the point where he believes that one good trick is better than a hundred poor ones he usually sends for “Tex” Thornton, who is called by the Texas Co. “the one-man fire department of the oil fields.” “Tex” is not a overly large person, rather thin and wiry, and only 34, who has earned by his feats of daring the plaudits of the operators throughout the Southwest. His face s prema- turely wrinkled by frequent exposures to the in- tense heat of the fires he fights for a living. When “Tex"” arrives on the scene no others need ap- ply for jcbs as firefighters. He takes the situation over entirely and puts out the blaze single- handed. That is, he is the only one who risks his life by going into the blaze. Of course, he is aided by machinery, boilers and, if it is a gas fire, by two or three cans of nitroglycerin. Thernton’s specialty is gas fires, but he will don his expensive asbestes suit and wade right into any kind of blaze. Gas fires he snuffs out by carrying a 25 to 30 quart can of nitroglycerin directly into the flame, to deposit it there and hurry away before it is ex- ploded electrically. No matter how big the blaze is, Thornton is ready to meet its challenge and, by meeting it successfully, to win several thousands of dollars and the acclaim of his thousands of buddies in the oil country. It is not on record that he ever turned his back on any fire, and his boosters in the oil fields—and they are many—claim that he would walk right into the Old Fiery Pit itself if there were enough meney in it. 5 While “Tex” Thornton is the most noted of the oil field fire- fighters, there are hundreds of other “roughnecks” who have reputations for fearlessness in the face of fire in their own localities. Hardened by the tough-enough everyday work of the oil fields, the ordinary work- man sees only a little difference between the hazardous life of the ordinary routine and the spec- tacular action required by fire. He is used to clinging to the top of a flimsy derrick swaying in the fierce wind of the prairie coun- try, Winter and Summer alike. He has stayed at his job while lightning crashed all around, working steadily so that his owner could bring in his well on time. Coated with the thick slime of a spouting gusher, he has. labored to close the valves, knowing that a spark caused by metal striking on metal would send him to his grave a charred and unrecognizable corpse. Out of any well crew a dozen or so fellows may be found who are willing to risk their lives to save the owner’s property and the lmrl'o(:1 unding wells from destruc- on. F the subjugation of a wild gusher, like “Stout Fella,” that has not caught on fire calls for courage and daring, the snuffing out of a burning oil or gas “wild un” demands these qualities transcended, with a few other things, like perseverance and level-headedness, thrown in, In the beginning the scene is much the same. Mud and muck boil from the casing, and work- men stand by expectedly. Ale ready the fire in the boiler heg been quenched when the word that a gusher is imminent has been passed around. Suddenly the warning rumble is heard, the “head” increases, and presently the derrick is obscured in a mist of oil-laden gas. Or, if it is a “gasser,” the fearful roar of the colorless gas and the flying pieces of timber and debris are the only indi- cations that a veritable hell has broken loose. Often these wells blow for days without catching fire, while the workmen labor to con- quer them. These are days full of dire ex- pectancy. More than likely the dread of the workmen is fulfilled. Suddenly, with an ear- splitting crackling like huge sails being flapped and snapped in a gale, the derrick is en- veloped in flame. The crackling gives way in an instant to a mighty roaring, and man has released another volcano with his rotary drill. The gas flame is almost colorless, except for the bright orange plume at the top. At night, when it spouts a hundred or so feet into the blackness and floods the plains or pine-clad hills with the bright orange light, the stem near the base is blue and the top an even more brilliant orange. The oil flame is a smudgy orange, now and then blackened completely by the dense smoke, which may be seen for a hundred miles on a clear day. On its upward spurt all of the oil is not consumed, and it drops in flery splashes on the surrounding terrain, starting hundreds of smaller fires that are fed constantly by the main stream. Or