Famed oil well firefighter "Boots" Hansen dead at 93

Pioneering oil well firefighter Asger “Boots” Hansen, Jr. passed quietly at his home in Fort Myers, FL on June 16, 2019 at age 93, according to an obituary posted by a Florida funeral home. A native of Houston, TX, Hansen was the second of two children born to Asger and Mary (Kornmayer) Hansen. Soon after leaving school and having reached his seventeenth birthday, Hansen enlisted in the U.S. Navy at the height of WWII. Always in search of adventure, he volunteered for the submarine service, the most hazardous duty in the navy. After training at Pearl Harbor, he was placed aboard U.S.S. Nautilus (SS-168), which had been given the dangerous assignment of carrying men and supplies from Australia to guerilla fighters in the Japanese-held Philippines. After the war, Hansen returned to Houston and joined his father in the sign painting business. On weekends he would hang out at the local stock...