What happens when ammunition is burned in fire?

[Silver Bullet]

Nearly on topic:

About ten years ago some of the better Oakland, California neighborhoods burned down. After a day or two people could come back to what was left of their homes after having evacuated when the fires were starting.

Jay Leno told a joke about one individual came back to his house to find that everything in the house had burned down to the ground, except for a bag of easy-light Kingsford charcoal, which was still intact.

 

[nadeem]

onc eon an overnight exercise with the army a flare started a forest fire and loads of blank ammunition was going off. dont know what happened to it tho

 

[00blkgt]

Congradulations chopinbloc, you have written a post that tops a new level of stupid! I can't believe that anyone could say some crap like this about a profession so dearly valued by not only those who dedicate their life to it, but also to anyone that has recieved our services. It is true that the IAFF (like most unions) is lead by folks that lean towards the Democrats but the members still have their own freewill. I and others have put our butts on the line for personal property that may seem trivial to most folks, but it is all they have. Your thoughts of politics, motivation, and agendas are only a reality in your small world. Try to silence the voices in your head. Then if you would please remove your head from its current location and place it back on your shoulders, there now, easy... take a breath... and try to post a reply without hurting my very fragile feelings. Thanks!
J

 

[Travis McGee]

M2 Carbine: Thanks for the pics! Great "reality check."

444: I salute you, and your brother firefighters. Well said!

 

[Moser]

Well this is my fist post, so go easy on me. A 22LR will go off like a firecracker in a campfire, but it also throws off some nasty shrapnel (I have a small piece of brass in my right pointer finger from my younger doumber days). As far as the firefighting issue goes, I've been a fireman for 3 years now and have honestly never had a real problem with it. I've seen ammo pop off in car fires before, but can't ever remember hearing any go off in a housefire. And 444, you have it right brother, we don't stand back and let anything burn, unless of couse trying to fight it is a bigger hazard. Fortunatly ammo in a house isn't.

 

[M2 Carbine]

After my fire I found burst cases as far out as 200 feet. I don't know if most of them flew like darts or just spun through the air any old way. There was a lot of "zinging".
I did not find one bullet (away from the fire), even though there were bullet holes in the metal walls of the shop.
Maybe they flew further??

My Wife was about 150 feet away from the burning shop trying to keep the grass fire away from the house.
Later on she told me she had been hit by something. She had a small cresent shape bruse above Her lip.
I told Her to go out to where She was when hit and look for a shell case, probably blackened and probably blown out at the forward end. She came back in a couple minutes with the shell that probably hit Her, looking exactly as I described.

 

[GLM]

444 said: This might have happened somewhere. Maybe a volunteer department somewhere with a bunch of overweight, drunk volunteers. But, not with any professional firefigthers I have ever met.

I appreciate the job that firefighters do, and I thank you for your service. But for you to degrade volunteer firefighters as being "overweight", and worse, "drunk" is just plain wrong. They also risk their lives, and for no pay.

 

[chopinbloc]

444,
that sounds pretty reasonable, actually. this is probably one of those things where people tend to believe what they hear simply because it angers them so much. my contention was that i doubt burning ammo is particularly dangerous, especially to a firefighter wearing very heavy clothing and full face protection, but if it is that dangerous then it would be preposterous to let it continue to be a danger to the neighborhood.

00blkgt,
go back and read the forum rules. personal attacks are outside the scope of our discussions here.

 

[444]

GLM, if you are trying to become a spin doctor, you are off to a good start.

 

[bigray327]

This might have happened somewhere. Maybe a volunteer department somewhere with a bunch of overweight, drunk volunteers. But, not with any professional firefigthers I have ever met.

Wow. Thankfully, I'll never have to call you for mutual aid.

 

[skellymo]

Ammo exploding

A friend of mine was burning leaves and a 357 shell exploded and entered his stomach, which resuted in serious surgery, and removal of his spleen and part of intestines. It was life threatening, and he later had more problems with hernias. This was from one bullet he had raked up in his yard. Also I was at an old junkyard once, and a guy was burning limbs, he throwed an old driveshaft on the limbs to help hold them down, we were inside the tin building when the driveshaft exploded, and it almost came through the tin, scared the heck out of us, and could have been serious if we had been outside near the fire. So anything, even something hollow, will explode with enough heat. Firemen in my area are also Police and they take risks everyday, thats what they get paid to do. They need all the help and support they can get.

 

[deanf]

In the event there is a situation that requires an officer to save someone, that office WILL go through the door and not stand back and watch.

Uh, what about the Columbine High School shooting?

And we firefighters won't stand back and watch if there's someone to be saved. I'm not sure what gave you that idea.

 

[nyresq]

Those 324 in NY did not stand back and watch

343...

 

[mattk]

Defensive mode

Its called defensive mode. It is NOT allowing a building to burn to the ground.
Its simply fighting the fire from the outside of the building and trying to prevent its spread to other buildings. We are still putting water on the fire.

Any FD that is just now switching over to a life over property philosophy is WAY behind the curve.

We fought a shed fire last month that had ammo cooking off. Really wasnt that hard to put out.

And yes, firefighter LOVE to fight fires. Especially if their in an area where the run 100 EMS calls for every fire call.

I work for a dept that has a station that is 5th in the highest number of runs yearly for the US. 99% of the calls are EMS

 

[iocane]

A old lady who was a friend of the family once got hit by a bullet that went off in her stove. Don't think it was to bad. I was by a hotdog roast that evidently had lots of bullets of large caliber in there, I wasn't hit by anything but did some running. I used to set old stumps on fire and leave cans of chili in them. For some reason they seemed to taste better that way. I always left a hoel in the cans because once my Father forgot to leave a hole in a can, it blasted a hole in the stump. So even a can of chili can be hazardous.

 

[~z]

Throw a can of beer in a bed of coals and see what happens.
~z