Can a bullet start a fire?

Trey Veston said:

Was out at my favorite gravel pit doing some shooting yesterday and noticed the rocky hillside that was the backstop had quite a bit of dried vegetation.

We are in an extreme fire danger warning out here with hundreds of forest fires raging.

I don't think I've ever seen a spark while shooting, but I seem to recall there have been some fires started by shooting.

All the bullets I was using were copper-jacketed lead. I don't think they would spark, but I did make sure I had some water handy and closely inspected the backstop after done shooting to make sure there was no smoke.

Curious as to anyone knows if there has been a fire started by shooting "normal" bullets and not tracers or steel-cored stuff.

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I know of at least one local wildfire started by people shooting in dry vegetation. Can't say for sure what ammo they used. Green tips will spark on steel and some rocks; tracers are a definite YES!

It seems there's a scientific paper for everything these days.

https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_rp104.pdf

In Colorado a couple years back...
"The Lake Christine Fire broke out when people illegally shot incendiary ammunition at the Basalt shooting range on July 3, 2018. The fire threatened Basalt and El Jebel at different times. It destroyed three homes and forced the evacuation of hundreds more. It eventually swept over 12,500 acres and cost $40 million to extinguish. It remains etched in the minds of many midvalley residents."

Anything is possible, But more are not likely.

It happened twice hear on forest service land. Location back stop had lots of rocks and vegetation. Luckily not large fires. So they shut it down. Really horrible location and the dummies should have known better.

Emphasis - this Will Be On The Test:

The only ammo I ever used (and was the only shooter) before the roughly two acres of former pasture burned up (extinguished by rural fire dept.), was >> Not incendiary, or tracer of any type at all. <<

It was a normal copper-jacketed bullet . The spark (s) was caused by hitting the steel target frame which was in high, extremely dry grass/weeds (sun & no rain in maybe 2 weeks or more), from about 300-330 yards. Period.

It wasn't "out west", but in rural nw MS, just south of Memphis.

Please do not confuse what this Normal bullet did with the Other chat about "tracer this", "incendiary that.".......the landowner certainly knew about the possibility, but was very complacent that week and knew that we were going to shoot.

Yes, that's why steel jacket milsurp ammo like GP-11 isn't allowed at our local range---sparks caused fires.

Slamfire said:

I know tracers will. I was shooting in a NRA Across the Course match at a National Guard Range, in a very hot and dry summer. Everything was dry, like crunchy bone dry. A National Guard unit was blasting away, over to the left, with their SAWS, and tracer ammunition. They set the dry brush in the forest on fire, fire trucks came, we civilians were booted from the range, and treated like criminals. We were lucky the National Guard were caught red handed with tracer ammunition, because the National Guard range officials wanted to blame us for the fire!

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Most of my enlistment was spent as either an assistant gunner to a M240B or as a SAW gunner. A true morale killer is being on a range dry enough to ban tracer ammo but not all ammo. And you (the lower enlisted) break belt links to take out tracer rounds and put them back together before firing. As I understand it, ammo can come in all ball links. I just rarely saw it.

Ignition Override said:

Emphasis - this Will Be On The Test:

The only ammo I ever used (and was the only shooter) before the roughly two acres of former pasture burned up (extinguished by rural fire dept.), was >> Not incendiary, or tracer of any type at all. <<

It was a normal copper-jacketed bullet . The spark (s) was caused by hitting the steel target frame which was in high, extremely dry grass/weeds (sun & no rain in maybe 2 weeks or more), from about 300-330 yards. Period.

It wasn't "out west", but in rural nw MS, just south of Memphis.

Please do not confuse what this Normal bullet did with the Other chat about "tracer this", "incendiary that.".......the landowner certainly knew about the possibility, but was very complacent that week and knew that we were going to shoot.

Click to expand...

Thank you, I learned something.

Don't shoot on your land in a drought, shoot on someone else's patch. LOL.

I had no idea that copper jacketed bullets would create sparks on a steel target.

Maybe...

I caught pine needles on fire while shooting an old fuel oil barrel with 17hmr.
We were shooting it with my 17 and my friends 22. The 17 was punching through dropping got fragments in the pine needles. It went up in flames. Thankfully I was on the fire department and had my gear with me.

Trey Veston said:

Curious as to anyone knows if there has been a fire started by shooting "normal" bullets and not tracers or steel-cored stuff.

Click to expand...

Keep in mind that steel jacketed ammo is "normal" these days, and not just the cheap Russian steel case stuff.

A lot of it's copper washed steel bullets in brass cases, and unless you try it with a magnet you'll never even know it's steel.

When I was a kid I used to shoot the chunks of quartz in a cut bank with my BB gun, just to watch the sparks.
It's the same principle as the igniters on gas stoves... .

herrwalther said:

In the Army we weren't allowed to fire tracers in very dry conditions. And in the worst conditions the range went cold entirely. Even FMJ bouncing off a rock, steel etc can cause a spark. Is it common to cause a fire? I've never seen it.

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I've seen three range fires and two caused a cease fire. We were immediately put to the task of putting it out, which took over 45 minutes beginning to end. Just us in uniform stomping with our boots. Fun times.

What I have discovered is that out west, when in fire season (now) most of the events are either "campers" or deliberate arson. Lightning on occasion and blaming the utilities now and again, but the forensics shown on camera are often suspect.

Nobody much ever blames gun owners mag dumping their AR's causing millions of dollars in damage. Yet, posters in this forum will state categorically that is exactly how they are used in hunting season. But, nobody had to evacuate the area as a result. All those dead dry leaves and trees, yet never a fire.

Makes you think.

If you go to the Knob Creek machine gun shoot you can watch it happen. They shoot a lot of tracers & set old boats & wooden spools on fire.

Old movie called "deadly weapons" there's a few YouTube blurbs of some scenes, worth getting if you can find it, Annite Productions? Whole segment on shooting gas tanks, cans etc.......his go to fire starter was WWI oil filled anti tank round! Tank blew beautifully! The film dispels many myths about bullet tumble and other misconceptions, highly recommended.....I've won many bets on the proven facts.......

Slamfire said:

I don't see how lead bullets could cause a fire, impacting on the ground.

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A remote possibility would be if the lead bullet drove two object (rocks) together causing a spark from their collision.
My brother lives in AZ north of Kingman. Locals there use an area on BLM land to shoot. There is no shooting on BLM land now however, and he spends time putting out food and water for local wildlife . Here in southern Minnesota our air quality is poor from the western fires and there is an air quality warning in effect. We have needed rain here as well and our crops have suffered as a result.

Slamfire said,

"I don't see how lead bullets could cause a fire, impacting on the ground. But, steel core, or steel jacketed, possibly, maybe. Darn sure tracer will."

It mostly depends on velocity. A chocolate pudding meteor moving at 40,000 km per second hitting the moon will create a lot of heat and light --even if the moon itself were also made of chocolate pudding. If the moon were flammable, it would start to burn.

The resulting temperature depends on the contact speed (energy depends on the square of velocity) and how fast that energy is dissipated.

I myself have seen faint flashes on hitting rocks with a .243 at dusk --not 100% repeatable, but often enough to call it confirmed.

Look at it this way for that .243 hitting a rock. You've got, say, 2000 foot-pounds of energy being dissipated against that rock in what, one microsecond? One millisecond? That's a lot of power (in the technical sense) and there's no wonder things got hot.

After all, many Watts means many hots.

Terry, 230RN

At an indoor range, they used to push piles of empty brass into a pile in the middle of the floor about 10 yds down range, then probably once per week shoveled them up.....
I watched the pile of brass burst into flames once. It burned like it was soaked with a quart of lighter fluid. Carbon dust, unburnt powder, etc allowed it to ignite. Have no idea how it lit up. But just out of nowhere....poof!

I wasn’t there for either;

One friend claimed to have been shooting his 460 S&W prone using a bipod and said he started a small grass fire from muzzle blast/ejecta. This he said he stomped out before it got away.

Another friend did start a small fire shooting his AK with steel jacketed Russian rounds. Several other buddies were there and used a fire extinguisher and cooler meltwater to put that one out.

Best to not shoot in dry brush or grassy areas.

Stay safe.

Just screwing around with the numbers on the light flashes from a .243 hitting a rock, I get

.243 bullet hits a rock
2000 ft lbs energy
.001 second (one millisecond impact duration assumed)

Power = a function of energy dissipated over time

Equals 2000 ÷ 0.001 = 2,000,000 foot pounds per second of power.

Since one horsepower is 550 foot-pounds per second, this is 3636 horsepower or over 2700 kiloWatts

All in a .243 inch diameter spot.

Now a lot of that power would be expended in mechanically breaking up the rock around that spot and disrupting the bullet, but still...

...occasional flashes at dusk.

Stop me before I do any more calc'latin'.

Terry, 230RN

GNP said:

It seems there's a scientific paper for everything these days.

https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_rp104.pdf

Click to expand...

Great info.
Here's a snippet for anyone scared off by a 36 page document:

"Our study focused on laboratory testing of different bullets loaded in commercial ammunition. We observed that bullet material did affect fragment sizes and ignitions, with steel components and solid copper bullets producing the largest fragments and the most likely ignitions in peat. Despite similar maximum temperatures recorded on thermal images, larger fragments from solid copper bullets seem to be the most plausible explanation for the slower rates of temperature decline compared to steel seen in the image sequences (Figure 21). The opposite trend would be expected based only on the greater thermal conductivity of copper than steel, meaning that heat loss rates should be greater for equivalent fragment mass."

It also makes sense that the flammable materials matter. For instance (and this is purely anecdotal), there was a shabby little range near me in San Diego county that had a big hill beyond the berm backstop. Whenever I'd go, it seemed to always be charred in new places and the people who ran the place (it was a campground too) said that it wasn't uncommon to have to bring in their dozer to knock down little fires. But then again, this an area with lot's of dry chapparal in the hotter months and it's prone to burn. I imagine in wetter areas, with different plants, it's another story.

I've seen it happen in the military during qualifications. Stop the shooting, everybody goes out with e-tools until the fire is out.

Have been a fire or two that were supposedly started by shooters here in northern Nevada in the past.
We always carry water and shovels with us when out shooting.

If the magnifying properties of a water droplet and the sun can cause a fire, a round and the energy/heat it can produce could too.

I know for sure API can. Or depending on the circumstances.