Old Powder Caused Fire!

[StrutStopper]

First, sorry for the long post. Second, if I didn't know the people this happened to I would have a hard time believing this, I'd probably call this BS. I hunt at a property owned by someone I used to work with. All I have is his email address. I have been trying to contact him for several weeks via email. He lives over an hour a way and I hadn't tried to catch him at home yet. I finally got hold of him the other day. He apologized for not getting back to me sooner, but he had a house fire and had been dealing with that since the beginning of the month.

I drove there today. There was a trailer set up for his family to live in while the house gets restored. His wife was there when I got there. I asked her what happened. I couldn't believe her answer. Apparently my friends brother gave him about 15 pounds of gun powder for reloading about 10-15 years ago. It never got used. Sorry, I don't know what kind of powder it was. Their daughter just got out of the shower in the room next to where this powder was stored. She heard a WOOOOSH sound and came out of the bathroom to find the place in flames. It started where the old powder was stored.

Luckily, they were able to keep the fire down for a few minutes with an extinguisher and the fire dept responded in about 5, but there was some serious damage. I saw the spot where the powder was kept and the floor all around it charred, the rest of the place sustained heat and smoke damage. They were lucky they were home and someone got on this almost immediately or the place would have been a total loss. The BIL had some more of this powder at his home, he dumped it outside and lit it off. I'm sure he didn't know it would have made good fertilizer.

There was no other suspected cause of this fire than spontaneous combustion of this old gun powder. Has anyone heard of old un-stable gun powder just going up like this? I've got probably 20 pounds of powder in the next room and I'm sure many of you have more than that. After hearing this, I'm going to make sure it all gets used or at least smelled now and again if it sits for a few years. Green grass beats a burned home!

 

[ColtPythonElite]

I don't believe it caused that fire.

 

[blarby]

Powder next to an electric outlet ?

Or, you know, imr just had a recall for spontaneous combustion...

 

[rcmodel]

I don't know much.

But I do know this.

If 15 pounds of smokeless powder lit off in a room?

There is no way, no day they could put it out or contain it with a home size fire extinguisher.

I think maybe something else is at fault!
(Like an electrical short or something.)

rc

 

[fguffey]

There is no way, no day...

I know there is a problem with plastic jugs, not all plastic jugs but in my opinion there are plastic jugs that should not be used for storing powder, or I could say we should keep our powder in fresh/new jugs. I prefer small jugs.

I checked an 8 pound jug of powder, it was warm. The plastic had fatigued and cracked, the powder inside the jug was 'gassing?'.

F. Guffey

 

[SwaneeSR]

First of all, I would think we all agree that smokeless powder should be stored in the original containers, in a cool dry place and out of the reach of children.

I am sure there is much information on this site regarding powder storage. Also, the manufacturers all publish guidelines. It would be good to follow these practices for both safety reasons and to explain to the insurance adjuster in the event of a incident.

No offense intended to the original poster. However, there is a reason "hear say" (second hand statements) are not allowed in court. The accuracy of the information is questionable.

Any house fire is tragic. Good to hear that no one was apparently hurt and it sounds like the damage was bad but could have worse.

FYI - I do have a fire extinguisher on my loading bench and on every level of the house. I also have a bigger commercial extinguisher in the garage.

PS - I am more concerned about primers than powder and yes the primers are stored separate from powder and not all in one jar (as I have read many times in this forum)

 

[StrutStopper]

I thought electrical outlet too, but this was in the middle of the room, not close to any electrical outlet. It was not contained by the fire extinguisher, the wife made it die down somewhat she said but it flared right back up as soon as the extinguisher was empty. It was the fire department's quick response that saved the structure. Maybe it was something else, but they insist it was the powder and given someone saw where it started and for lack of any other explanation I guess its plausible. I was told 10-15 pounds of powder, but that was from the wife. I doubt she really knew the quantity she was probably taking a guess.

Maybe it was the powder, maybe not. I find it hard to believe, but these guys are living in a trailer while their house gets restored. The powder either caused this by itself or something else helped it out, but nobody knows what that could have been.

I just googled the IMR recall. I wonder if this was IMR? Next time I'm there I have to ask my friend or his brother if they're around what brand of powder it was.

 

[Mostly Lead]

Second, if I didn't know the people this happened to I would have a hard time believing this, I'd probably call this BS.

I'm having a hard time believing the powder "caused" the fire.

However, I am sorry for their loss. A fire is a terrible and frightening thing.

A solid reminder for folks to review how they store their powder. There are some methods that are better than others...

 

[MEHavey]

Uuuuuuhhhh..... Sorry folks.

Read it: http://www.ssusa.org/articles/2015/9/2/product-recall-notice-imr-4007-ssc-powder/

Yes. It can -- and apparently has -- happen[ed].

 

[jmr40]

Thanks for the link. I was having my doubts as I read through the thread.

 

[Scooter22]

Hair driers make a lot of static. I get zapped almost every day using the bathroom after my wife or daughter. I wonder if she was using one. Thats what I'm thinking.

 

[fguffey]

No offense intended to the original poster. However, there is a reason "hear say" (second hand statements) are not allowed in court. The accuracy of the information is questionable.

First of all, I would think we all agree that smokeless powder should be stored in the original containers, in a cool dry place and out of the reach of children.

"powder should be stored in the original containers", ? This is not the first time this topic has been discussed on the Internet. I said not all plastic jugs used for smokeless powder are approved containers. Pull down powder is sold in jugs designed for food consumption. The atmosphere inside the jug heats and cools, this causes the jug to expand and contract, the expanding and contracting fatigues the cheap/thin plastic jug. Again, I checked a jug of powder, the powder was getting warm, the jug could not seal because of fractures in the jug.

Cool/dry? A changes in temperature could cause a change in pressure inside the jug. Meaning temperature changes could also fatigue the jug. Then there is the atmospheric pressure change.

F. Guffey

 

[WNTFW]

I am not claiming anything about what happened or didn't. That nobody got burned is a success.

I had some powder that went bad. It was old when I got it. Once it went bad I tried to light some and it didn't burn well at all.

 

[Steve C]

All that's really known is the powder burned. The belief that it was the source of ignition is an unsubstantiated assumption and most likely incorrect. Powder container labels state "Extremely Flamable and Explosive" with warning regarding keeping it away from heat and flame. NO warning about being self igniting and considering that smokeless and black powder isn't known for spontaneous combustion the 100's years of use I'd say the powder wasn't the source of ignition.

You can read the MDS (material data sheets) for powders marketed by Hogdon at http://www.hodgdon.com/msds.html for information regarding the characteristics of the powder(s).

 

[ArchAngelCD]

The OP said the powder was very old. The IMR recall was for newer powder and only one powder, not all IMR powders. Still scary. Sorry for their loss, at least no one was hurt.

 

[Sunray]

Powder, regardless of its age or what container it's in, does not burst into flames for no apparent reason. 10-15 pounds of powder would have caused the entire house to burn down. Part of a pound of Bullseye in an ash tray with a match applied makes a 10 foot plus column of fire.
The pressure inside the jug is irrelevant. Pressure changes do not cause combustion.

 

[gamestalker]

I just did a search on this a couple weeks ago after purchasing a bunch of very old powder, and yes, smokeless powder is capable of spontaneous combustion. It doesn't happen often, but it can and has happened. It's a nitrogen based propellant, and when it breaks down, (Read IMR's recall) it can become unstable, thus spontaneous combustion.

The onset is identifiable by the temperature of the powder. If the powder is generating heat, then it has dangerously broken down.

With this particular incident of spontaneous combustion, I can see where a single lb. went up, and then as the heat was building, the other containers individually began to ignite, the use of the fire extinguisher having helped control the rate at which they went up. I'm pretty sure all 10 or 15 lbs. didn't go up all at once.

GS

 

[njl]

This is something I haven't really given enough thought. I keep a fire extinguisher in a closet just outside the reloading room. From a SAAMI publication on smokeless powder:

Oxygen from the air is not necessary for the combustion of smokeless powders since they contain sufficient built-in oxygen to burn completely, even in an enclosed space such as the chamber of a
firearm.

Ignition occurs when the powder granules are heated above their ignition temperature.

If a jug of powder gets lit, I suspect there's no "putting it out"...and the only use for the extinguisher is going to be to limit what else burns.

 

[gamestalker]

Precisely, once it starts burning, you can't extinguish it by cutting off it's air supply. And in fact, if you deplete it's oxygen supply, it burns hotter and more efficiently. The best bet, is to control the spread of fire, and let the powder burn with as much open air as what is possible. The best fire control agent against smokeless powder, is water.

I got to thinking more about this, as I just bought a bunch of very old powder, and decided to take it's temperature. My powders are all stored in a closed wooden cabinet, so there's no outside air flow, thus they should all pretty much be the same temperature. So I decided to use a probe thermometer to check them, and some were as much as 19 degree's warmer than other's? Hmm, I wonder if that's a sign of break down? The one's that were the warmest, were in fact those which are oldest, I'm kind of concerned now.

I have a couple pounds of fresh IMR-4350, and a couple pounds of very old IMR-4350, of the old stuff, one was 89 degree's, the other 91 degree's. The inside of the cabinet is 72 degree's. The fresh 4350 was only 73 degree's, just 1 degree warmer than the internal cabinet temperature. And to make sure I had a fairly accurate assessment, I put the probe thermometer in the cabinet, then quickly closed it and then waited about 15 minutes so I could get a fairly accurate estimate of the constant temp inside. The other fresh powders were all within 3 degree's of cabinet temperature, and none of the old powders were less than 8 degree's warmer.

I'm convinced there is some viable substance to this thread. I'm totally convinced that powders generate heat as they break down. I've seen large piles of nitrogen rich compost literally start on fire the result of break down. It happens all the time and on a fairly regular basis. So being that smokeless powders are heavily nitrogen rich, and are already oxygenated, there's no reason to dismiss the now and then incident, it can, and has happened. And depending on how we store our powders, the risk can be better managed by storage temperature, and protecting them from exposure to direct sun light. In this respect, if you store your powders on a shelf that gets blasted by sun light, even a few minutes of morning or afternoon sun light daily, it would be wise to move them to a new spot protected from the sun, and any heat sources. Heat very quickly accelerates the rate of degradation, thus increasing the possibility of an incident.

GS

 

[Henry45]

Where can you buy "approved" containers? I have a couple 8 lb pull down jugs, and always thought that the containers weren't like the ones from Winchester or Hodgdon?

 

[rfwobbly]

Fire by second hand info is never going to be solved here.

What I wonder about is the IMR "recall". If you fill their jug with water and dispose of the powder, then how do you get repaid? This, since in a regular recall you are sending the product back to the factory. I don't blame IMR for not wanting a mailroom full of returned powder! Just wondering how that works.

 

[BSA1]

Where can you buy "approved" containers? I have a couple 8 lb pull down jugs, and always thought that the containers weren't like the ones from Winchester or Hodgdon?

This is why you should buy some one pound containers of the powder you are using. Use up the powder in the one pound containers first then pour powder from the large four and eight pound jugs into them.

Not only does it make it safer and much easier to handle the powder in the one pound containers it keeps stored in containers that have the proper factory labels on them.

 

[fguffey]

The pressure inside the jug is irrelevant. Pressure changes do not cause combustion.

Fantastic, simply fantastic.

If possible, let us forget smokeless powder and concentrate on the container. I have plastic containers that fatigue and crack because of pressure changes, I have plastic containers that fatigue due to temperature changes. I understand, the manufacturer never intended their container to last forever.

I have purchased smokless powder in containers that should have never been used for gun powder. Again, I checked my containers of powder and found one that was warm. The container was cracked, the lid was tight.

F. Guffey

 

[Slamfire]

The story of Cassandra of Troy is rather instructive of how the shooting community considers gunpowder and ammunition lifetime. If you remember, Cassandra was cursed to accurately predict the future, but no one believed her. In fact, Trojans thought her a mad woman.

So I am going to repeat again something that the shooting community will totally ignore, because it conflicts with their preconceived opinions: Gunpowder has a shelf life. Gunpowder does not get better with age, combustion pressures increase with old gunpowder, old gunpowder will blow up your gun, and in bulk, it will auto combust.

This explains the why's of auto combustion:

Dec 2003 Propellant Management Guide:

Stabilizers are chemical ingredients added to propellant at time of manufacture to
decrease the rate of propellant degradation and reduce the probability of auto ignition during its expected useful life.

As nitrocellulose-based propellants decompose, they release nitrogen oxides. If the nitrogen oxides are left free to react in the propellant, they can react with the nitrate ester, causing further decomposition and additional release of nitrogen oxides. The reaction between the nitrate ester and the nitrogen oxides is exothermic (i.e., the reaction produces heat). Heat increases the rate of propellant decomposition. More importantly, the exothermic nature of the reaction creates a problem if sufficient heat is generated to initiate combustion. Chemical additives, referred to as stabilizers, are added to propellant formulations to react with free nitrogen oxides to prevent their attack on the nitrate esters in the propellant. The stabilizers are scavengers that act rather like sponges, and once they become “saturated” they are no longer able to remove nitrogen oxides from the propellant. Self-heating of the propellant can occur unabated at the “saturation” point without the ameliorating effect of the stabilizer. Once begun, the self-heating may become sufficient to cause auto ignition.

This is a good reference on stabilizers,

ROLE OF DIPHENYLAMINE AS A STABILIZER IN PROPELLANTS;ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY OF IPHENYLAMINE IN PROPELLANTS

Nitrocellulose-base propellants are essentially unstable materials that decompose on aging with the evolution of oxides of nitrogen. The decomposition is autocatalytic and can lead to failure of the ammunition or disastrous explosions.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/783499.pdf

This section is from the Dec 2003 Propellant Management Guide, the Army has experienced a number of auto combustion incidents and used them as examples in the guide:

c. During the period 1984 through 1997, seven propellant auto ignition events occurred at U. S. Army Material Command (AMC) Installations.

1. 1984: Lake City AAP

IMR powder that was only 5 years old auto ignited and the above round magazine and its contents were destroyed. More than 100,000 lbs of powder deflagrated.

2. 1984: Lake City AAP

The same lot of IMR powder, a fragment quantity isolated and saved for critical production testing, auto ignited two months after the previous fire. Only a small quantity of powder was lost, but another magazine was destroyed.

3. 1985: Blue Grass Army Depot

The local-stocks storage magazine use for demilitarization activities contained high explosives material as well as unmonitored M10 propellant powder. Auto ignition of the powder and its resulting deflagration gradually ignited the other energetic materials present. The earth covered magazine and its contents were destroyed.

4. 1987: Lone Star AAP

Benite was stored in a heated magazine so that it could be temperature conditioned prior to loading into production items. The building became overheated which accelerated the rate of decomposition of the benite to a point that auto ignition occurred. The structure and contents were lost.

5. 1989: Hawthorne Army Depot

8-inch, 55-caliber propelling charges loaded with single-base propellant auto ignited in an earth-covered magazine more than one year after the Navy ordered the lot destroyed due to low stability. The magazine contents of 30,715 lbs of various propellant were destroyed and the magazine was heavily damaged.

6: 1996: Red River Army Depot

Explusion charge assemblies for large caliber artillery rounds, each charge filled with only one ounce of M10 propellant and stored 250 to a box, auto ignited. The earth covered magazine and its contents were totally destroyed.

7. 1997: Hawthorne Army Depot

M9 flake propellant bags that had been removed from 81 mm mortar round were bulk-packed and placed into long-term storage. A container of unstable propellant auto ignited, and all 20,000 lbs of propellant inside the earth covered magazine were destroyed. The magazine was severely damaged. Value of content lost was more than $3,000,000, which the cost to repair the magazine was $164,000.

Old surplus military powder is not necessarily a bargain if it burns your house down during your sleep.
Military Surplus Powder autocombusting

http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=6&f=3&t=248538

I run a long range shooting club here in NM. Yesterday a member approached me with a question about a powder he is using. He said " it's fuming" ........What?
I walked down and sure enough the powder was outgassing a very heavy oder of ammonia and Nitric Acid fumes. The powder was slowly turning sticky and had,from over night, corroded the brass cases and the projectiles.
This powder is milsurp pull down IMR-5010 powder that was sold in bulk from the long gone Talon company. Weidners and Pats reloading sells this powder in black plastic 8 pound jugs. There are no lot numbers or dates on the label.

I have been reloading since 1964 and have never seen this happen before. As you know nitro-cellulose uses Nitric Acid to make the propellant. Some how the acid was not neutralized correctly. When the acid is not removed from the powder grains, the deterent coating will break down and uncontrolled burning will happen. The powder may detonate rather than burn
If any of you have any powder that was OK a few months ago you may want to check it again. This powder was normal just last winter. Now it is breaking down. It was stored in a cool room. It was not left in the sunlight.
Chris at Weiders has been notified.

This was purely a PULLDOWN powder issue. NOT a Virgin IMR-5010 issue. I know the guy this allegedly happened to (Paul A. of Albuquerque). I suggested he post the source, acquisition date, etc but to date he has not. He told me the powder was PULLDOWN IMR-5010 from www.wideners.com. Wideners allegedly told him they would not replace the powder as his storage of it was beyond their control. Also, he had no direct status with them as he obtained this particular jug from another guy that had bought it from wideners.

I personally know the guy this happened to and unless you see some sort of acrid fumes coming off your powder, I wouldn't worry about it. Paul is a real cheap skate. He was loading $2.00 Lehigh 800 grainers with surplus powder. Silly way to save $0.25.

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?52892-Warning-surplus-IMR-5010-powder-users

1. 10-02-2009, 11:02 AM#6
Cincinnati Kid
Platinum Bullet Member
Join Date
Dec 1969
Location
Cincinnati, Ohio
Posts
421

That IMR 5010 powder that came from Talon has caused several large fires here in Ohio, two of them locally to a friend of mine, and one large fire in Northern Ohio that I know of. Anyone who has any of that 5010 powder that came from Talon needs to dispose of it if it shows any signs of breaking down. I wouldn't trust any of it.

The shame of it is, these facts are contrary to what the shooting community desires. The shooting community assumes they are going to live forever and therefore, their hoard of gunpowder and ammunition must also last forever. Any evidence to the contrary is ignored.

So, for me, this was an exercise in futility. You can't educate people who don't want to know.

 

[R.W.Dale]

Slamfire if it's any consolation your post has brought this unbeknownst issue with 5010 to my and jerkface11's attention and we will be inspecting and possibly quarantining our cache of 5010