Reminder to keep loading area clean and free of spilled powder.
From the link "Apparently the homeowner may have been reloading some ammunition in his garage and something went wrong." Bit of an understatement.

Firefighter struck by bullet battling blaze in Gilbert - Story | KSAZ

Maybe it was an incident like this one from last year...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...wGN/story.html

Something is odd with that second story. Gunpowder does not explode unless contained. If it was contained, how did it get lit? Something does not add up.

Mike

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NRA Certified Pistol Inst.

Tons of ammunition?

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Keep on Chooglin'

When ammo heats up to the point of detonation(not in a barrel) it is usually the lighter CASE that goes flying not the heavier bullet,

Not saying the bullet does not move at all, just that the brass goes farther.

I believe it to be a physics thing or in some magazine.

Glad the Firefighter is OK!

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Still Running Against the Wind

I saw a video of a SAAMI test in which a trailer, packed full of boxed ammunition, was set afire. It took awhile until the ammo started to cook off. When it did, the rounds popped out of the cases and were propelled few feet at most. The firefighters who were present were chagrinned that they had suited up with thickly padded suits and bullet proof vests, which they later said were probably not needed.
I once had to dispose of some gunpowder that I did not need and could not give away. I made a pile in the back yard, ran a trail of powder a few feet from it, and lit the trail. When the main pile went up, it burned vigorously but there was no hint of an explosion. It has to be contained, so that high pressure can be achieved, before an explosion can occur. That is the principal behind pipe bombs.

The SAAMI video is at

SAAMI

When I was about 8, my dad was burning trash behind our back yard (it was the 60's - we Kentucky suburbanites burned our trash). He stepped away from the fire for a minute and I pitched in a half-empty can of my mom's hairspray.

He came back to the fire with a rake and about that time - BOOM!! Hairspray makes MUCH more of a ruckus than any .22's I ever threw into a fire.

And yes... I ran like hell but he eventually caught me.

I had a friend that would take an acetylene torch get a nice blue flame then snuff it out then stick the tip in a 2 quart bottle replace cap and set that off with cannon fuse. Rock and roll..

balloons work better!

Nah.. Walter would get a few ready and drive around drop one out here and there...bottle would roll around until KAAFREEKINBOOM...

One night he wanted to make the ultimate load. I was not there. He started filling a large black plastic garbage bag while in his garage..

After a few seconds static electricity set off the acetylene, it blew the interior door off the hinges, blew down the overhead light, cracked all the sheet rock seams, and buckled the roll up door.

Walter was lying unconscious on the floor when the fire department and police showed up. Bleeding out his ears.

He recovered and never did that again..

Powder doesn't ignite on it's own. There is a reason you, or anyone else in the area, not be smoking while reloading.

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NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

Yep, the Fireman was likely struck by a bit of case or maybe a whole case, not a bullet. I'm betting the media pumped up the story.

That first article is a prime example of the Anti Gun propoganda so prevalent in today's media. As Rule3 noted cartridges in open containers don't produce bullets "flying everywhere". In fact when Mythbusters did some experiments the bullets barely move at all.. What moves in a rather limited fashion is the empty case and when Mythbusters tested what would happen when ammunition in a hot oven cooked off the empty cases that hit the glass in the door didn't even have enough energy to crack the glass. Basically a face mask and turnout coat are the only protection needed to produce you from stored ammunition cooking off. Note, a chambered round in a firearm is a completely different matter and the hazard that this can create is one reason why the only firearms with a round in the chamber in my house are the ones I am actually carrying.

Finally IMO some of us are really jumping the gun assuming the fire was initiated by powder or primers lighting off. Stored even in an only moderately safe fashion modern powders or primers do not self ignite. What I suspect started this fire was something typically stored rather haphazardly in most garages and with a history of being quite volatile. That item would be Gasoline. A liquid that has probably started or contributed to more Garage fires than any other compound on the planet.

I am accustomed to storing gasoline containers for the mower and trimmer in the garage. Our home in Indiana had no appliances in the garage. But here in Tucson, most homes have gas appliances in the garage. So any stored gasoline will have to be stored elsewhere, like an out building in the back yard.

Balloons can go up like the Hindenburg and I had the singed eyebrows to prove it.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Of course.. "Tons of ammunition" = "hundreds of bullets"

That story looks really similar to a reported fire here in Kalifornistan some time ago, right down to interchangeable (and wrong) terms and seemingly impossible physics involved in the report.

I called BS on that one, at least the reporting angle. But I guess a garage fire wouldn't really be news otherwise, would it?

Only powder fire I was involved in was the one where I dumped the powder from a couple of blank 5.56mm rounds into the battalion S3's ashtray when I was a company commander. I wasn't there when he apparently ignited it with a cigarette, but I did get my *** chewed by the Battalion XO while he tried to keep a straight face.

Around here in semi-rural NE PA, it wouldn't be a house fire without some kind of ammo cook-off.