My late grand dad worked the oil fields of Texas from the 1930's to his end in 1980. He used to tell us of stories where they had "blow outs" while drilling. They didn't call out Red or Boots because they didn't exist back then. They fought blowout on their own. Always kept a box of dynamite in the tool house for emergencies, in case of fire on the well head. The old BOP's they used in those days were manually operated, no hydraulics, no actuators, to assist in closing them. In fact, some of the wells they drilled did not even have BOP's mounted on them!
On the old drilling rigs then, the engines running the draw works and pumps were right there near the well head. The moment a engine started raving up from normal, guys knew they were in trouble. Back then, they ran engines aspirated with mostly butane/propane, diesels were still new to the oil field or just owned by the big guys in those days who could afford them. But a out of control engine meant a leak of natural gas from the well head. Sometime you can get the engines shut down, most of the time, they blew up! (We all seen this in a recent blowout in Oklahoma on TV) First thing they do, is try to close the BOP's to get the well under control, most of the time, that didn't happen. If they did get them closed off, they would start the mud pumps and start pumping heavier mud down hole to get the well over balance to chock off the gas flow. When that didn't happen, you called in Halliburton with a bigger pump truck to get it under control.
When fire erupts, the only way to snub it out is pretty much with dynamite. Even today. Using the dozers to remove the rig iron, they were using that method back then, too. Nothing has changed. Now you call somebody to do that for you and send you a big bill when its all over with. Still have to remove the old BOP stack from the well and install a master valve to shut it in. For us that have worked around this stuff all our lives and or know someone that has, has experienced a blowout or two in their career and lived to talked about. Just another day at work!