Firefighter who devised a way to extinguish oil well blazes both on and off land. He successfully subdued nearly 500-foot flames in the Sahara Desert region of Algeria.
During World War II, he was a member of an American bomb disposal squad. After his tour of duty, he started working for Myron Kinley, an oil firefighting company.
He was seventy-five years old when he helped put out post-Gulf War oil well fires in Kuwait.
He was born in Houston, Texas to an Irish father.
The Sahara Desert fire that he helped extinguish inspired a John Wayne film called Hellfighters.