WARE (CBS) – This year’s fireworks show in Ware on June 30th was a crowd-pleaser. But it has been a disaster ever since.
In the days since the display at Grenville Park, people have found at least eight unexploded fireworks shells on the ground. Two of them went off after a park worker drove a lawnmower over them.Now, I find this on the questionable side (to Mythbusters!). I was unaware that shock could set off modern pyrotechnics - I thought that either flame or electrical charge were needed. It's possible, I suppose; I just wonder if this was more of a "hey, y'all hold mah beer and watch this s**t" moment.
Apparently the company that puts on pyrotechnics displays got a bad batch of fireworks from China (je suis shocked!) and has gotten itself in a world of hurt ever since. Communities all over Massachusetts are reporting unexploded fireworks being discovered, all pointing back to this one company.
Here's hoping that next year they leave the fireworks to the true professionals - the rednecks...
That is all.
7 comments:
It may not have been from shock. Rotating metal on bushings = heat. Also if you have any sparks because of the sudden change in density resulting in a shaft shift you're going to have a source for them to go off.
Most fireworks are just common black powder or it's derivatives so shock shouldn't be an issue. Heat, fire, sparks, etc are a big issue.
Unlikely yes, unbelievable no.
All I ever find on the ground are cigarette butts....
Black powder does have some degree of sensitivity to impact, or paper roll caps would not be so attractive. I remember in the olden days, we used to put a whole roll on the Pittsburgh trolley tracks. Today, your third grader who did that would be somewhere under a dogpile of DHS crazies.
Highly questionable.
Mowing last Saturday, I ran over an M-80 in the front yard. (Don't ask me, I don't know how it got there)
It was a little bent out of shape, but if I had put it on the front walk and lit it, I'm sure it would have worked just fine.
Not that I did that, because that sort of thing is frowned on in some states.
Chinese fireworks?
I thought they only exploded in the factory warehouse.
Black powder is the common charge in fireworks, and, as noted, can be set off by any number of things and conditions to be found under the deck of a mower.
I'm on the mowing crew at my club/range and all I ever hit with the mower are unbroken clays and (a curse upon them!) the damned plastic shotgun "wads". Ouch
Peet (from FR)
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