Hellfighters Trivia Quiz

Answer: New Year's Eve

While trying to bring a geyser of oil under control at Calhoun Oil Company Well No. 5, a worker accidentally bumps into a light bulb with his hard hat. The bulb shatters, igniting the oil and setting the worker and his comrades on fire. The movie's opening credits and music roll as the oil derrick burns and ultimately collapses.

Answer: Jim Hutton

Viewers are treated to a taste of Greg's womanizing nature right off the bat. When contacted in Acapulco about the Calhoun well fire, he's making time with a lovely Mexican woman. But by the time he gets back to Houston, he's found another attractive woman who follows him to the job.

Answer: Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Because Tish does not have regular direct contact with her father, she does not know exactly what he does for a living. On the plane ride to Houston, Tish admits that all she knows is that he's in the oil business. Tish doesn't take to Greg at first, thinking of him as boorish. But in a very short time, she grows to love him and ultimately marries him.

Answer: Department stores

Madelyn is a member of the Randolph family, which Tish explains is big in the department-store business. Madelyn originally left Buckman because of the dangerous nature of his jobs, which left her emotionally wracked with worry and fear.

Answer: Jay C. Flippen

At the time he appeared in "Hellfighters", Jay C. Flippen was using a wheelchair because he had one of his legs amputated some years earlier. In the movie, it is explained that Flippen's character, Jack Lomax, was paralyzed due to a back injury he had suffered on an oil-well job.

Answer: Venezuela

Greg bites off more than he can chew when he takes a job trying to put out a fire in Venezuela. Rebel guerrillas, intent on destroying the oil field, sabotage his efforts, despite the best efforts of the Venezuelan military commanders. Without telling Greg, Tish heads back to Houston, instead of flying to Caracas, to ask for her dad's help putting out the fire.

Answer: Putting out three well fires at once

Because the middle three of the five wells in the South American oil field are so close together, Buckman and Greg have to devise a strategy that will allow them to blow out the outer two wells before taking out the middle ones. Their efforts are frustrated by the persistent rebels, who seem to be one step ahead of the beleaguered national military forces. Ultimately, though, they bring the wells under control, even as the rebels mount a last-ditch aerial assault on them.

Answer: KPRC-TV

KPRC-TV, which occupies Channel 2 on the VHF dial, signed on as KLEE-TV on January 1, 1949. The call letters were changed in July, 1950, after the Hobby family, which owned KPRC radio, bought the station from W. Albert Lee. KPRC has been an NBC affiliate during its existence, and its mobile news truck is featured prominently during the Houston fire scenes.

At the time "Hellfighters" was filmed, Chandler worked at KPRC. He later worked for KVRL-TV, which signed on in 1971, three years after "Hellfighters" debuted, and is now Fox owned-and-operated affiliate KRIV-TV.

Answer: Universal

"Hellfighters" was released in the United States by Universal in 1968. The movie was directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, who directed John Wayne in four other movies, including "McLintock!" and "Cahill, United States Marshal". Robert Arthur, who served as the producer, also worked on several Abbott and Costello movies in the 1940s and 1950s. And Clair Huffaker, who wrote numerous episodes of dramatic television programs like "Bonanza" and "Rawhide", wrote the screenplay.

Answer: It was based on all their experiences.

Although ostensibly associated with "Red" Adair, "Hellfighters" employed all three men as technical advisers, and indicated in the opening credits that it was their experiences upon which the movie was based. All three men began their careers as oil-firefighters at the M.M. Kinley Company, before Adair formed his own company in 1959. Hansen and Matthews left Adair in 1978 to form their own company, Boots & Coots, which specializes in emergency response and well intervention services.