Red Adair Award Presented to Chris Ferrara

Industrial Fire World magazine honored Chris Ferrara, owner of US Fire Pump, with its 2019 Red Adair Award in recognition of his accomplishments in improving fire equipment used in industrial firefighting.

“What a great honor,” Ferrara said. “I’m glad to be in this industry and really make a difference.”

The award, presented during the US Fire Pump 2019 Hospitality Night in College Station, TX is in recognition of leadership in dealing with industrial emergencies.

Ferrara’s history in the fire service dates back more than 30 years. Working as a pipe fitter in the petrochemical industry, he built a fire truck for his local volunteer fire department in Louisiana. Shortly after that he established Ferrara Fire Apparatus which grew to a payroll of 450 employees with annual revenue of approximately $140 million.

In 2017, Ferrara sold the fire truck company to concentrate on a second business venture, US Fire Pump. The first US Fire Pump innovation to hit the market was the High Velocity Pump, the largest NFPA 1901 compliant fire pump on the market with a rating of up to 6,000 gpm.

In the field of industrial firefighting Ferrara worked the hose line that shut the last open valve at the Baton Rouge, LA refinery explosion in 1989. More recently, Ferrara and US Fire Pump personnel played a major role in extinguishing the 64-hour Intercontinental Terminals Co. fire in Deer Park, TX last March that spread through petrochemical products in and around 15 flammable liquid storage tanks.

The award is named for legendary oil well firefighter Red Adair. Adair, who died in August 2004 at age 89, enjoyed a  lengthy career that was capped in 1991 when he took a lead role in extinguishing the many oil well fires in Kuwait set by the retreating Iraqi army after the Gulf War.

“The greatest aspect of this award is its tie to Red,” IFW publisher David White said. “I presented the first Red Adair Award to Red himself in 1991.”

White, a former instructor at the Texas A&M Fire School, owns Fire & Safety Specialists, a consulting firm specializing in industrial fire protection that has done work in China, India, Libya, South Africa and other foreign countries. As a firefighter, he also took an active role in handling logistics for the 1989 Pasadena, TX, chemical plant explosion and fire.

Industrial Fire World magazine is the only U.S. publication concerned strictly with response to industrial emergencies.