Vintage work crew photos

[Jon]

Putting out an oil well fire. Southern California, 1931.

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[IntheGroove]

Red Adair would have been 16 years old but he would have wanted to help put out that fire...

[VinnieL]

I always wondered if they really did put those out with dynamite like was shown in the John Wayne movie.

[12bolts]

Yes they did. The strategy behind it was to use the explosive energy to blast the flame sideways away from the source of fuel faster than it could burn, leaving a relatively safe area for the workers to then move in and shut off the fuel flow. Not always successful the 1st time. Sometimes the fireball would go up and the spray would catch up with the source of ignition and back to square 1

[bruce.desertrat]

I always wondered if they really did put those out with dynamite like was shown in the John Wayne movie.

Yes they do, back then and to this day. There are some 'Thrilling true tales' of putting out well fires in the 1930's era Populaar MEchanics back issues on Google Books. Also I remember seeing a documentary about how they dealt with the well fires in Kuwait back after the first Gulf War; may have been a Nova or Frontline episode on PBS. There's also this https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104275/ but I don't think that's the one I saw.

That one features the real Red Adair, who was the character John Wayne was playing...

[Toolmaker51]

Clearly I'm not old enough to recall that 30's era; but I certainly remember the 'forests' of oil rigs strewn about. One in particular, along Pacific Coast Highway a bit past Seal and Huntington Beach areas seemed to go for miles.
There surely is still oil down there; but real estate development is more long term revenues; and easier to escalate prices.
So now, most families can't afford to buy a home, and all are dependent on foreign whims for petroleum...

[Drew1966]

Clearly I'm not old enough to recall that 30's era; but I certainly remember the 'forests' of oil rigs strewn about. One in particular, along Pacific Coast Highway a bit past Seal and Huntington Beach areas seemed to go for miles.
There surely is still oil down there; but real estate development is more long term revenues; and easier to escalate prices.
So now, most families can't afford to buy a home, and all are dependent on foreign whims for petroleum...

You’re making a good argument for moving away from fossil fuels and towards renewables there. Sadly, most folks are too lazy to do so.

[Jon]

Workers assembling a Merlin V-12 engine.

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[Pa1963]

Workers assembling a Merlin V-12 engine.

Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...s_fullsize.jpg

Looks more like they are preparing for a dyno pull.

[IntheGroove]

They are not assembling it, they are readying it for a test run...