Firefighter shot by stored rifle at a dwelling fire

[Captain K-man]

Thought this might be of interest to some. I was fighting a house fire back in the 80's when stored rounds started going off in the next room. I got out of that house real quick ... scared the crap out of me.

MO. FF SHOT BY STORED RIFLE AT DWELLING FIRE (The Secret List)

[Firefighterchen]

I fought a wildfire where meth lab items were dumped, at the time we didn't know. When propane tanks and shotgun shells started going off the crew boogied out of there right quick. Needless to say, we dug a safety line a 1/4 mile away and backburned it safely from a distance.

[dbrow6272]

In January I had a garage fire, electrical, when the police arrived the LEO asked me if there were any explosives in the garage. I told him yes there are gas containers in there, at that point there was an explosion, it was a can of brake cleaner, which I had several of in there due to the fact I was redoing my Harley Davidson full dresser. Yes it burned. During the hectic time I had completely forgotten I had a box of 500 22 LR rounds in my tool box, and under the bench on the floor I had a tub full of 16 gauge shoot gun shells. This was a gun my grandfather had, stored in a gun safe inside the house. Luckily not one of those rounds went off. I no longer store any ammo in the garage, it also now resides in it's own fire proof safe in my basement. Good grief I would have felt absolutely awful had one of the fireman been injured by any of this ammo. I feel awful and stupid even though no one got hurt. There is a safe way to store our guns, but don't forget about the ammo.

[NavyLCDR]

Every retail store that sells ammo has tens of thousands of rounds of ammo on the shelf with no extra fire protection, and if they sell reloading supplies, hundreds of pounds of powder on the shelves as well....

[Captain K-man]

Every retail store that sells ammo has tens of thousands of rounds of ammo on the shelf with no extra fire protection, and if they sell reloading supplies, hundreds of pounds of powder on the shelves as well....

And firefighters know what's in those kind of stores due to pre-planning and will let that shop burn instead of putting a firefighters life in danger. They can't pre-plan every house.

[kelcarry]

I can be wrong but I have always been under the impression, based on the question of fire and cartridges that has been asked and answered on other forums, that you can never say never but an explosion of the ammunition in a fire is an exception and far from the norm. Any really good technical answers from some of this forum's "expert base" would be welcome.

[JimPage]

Ammunition that cooks off will not be very dangerous beyond a few feet. The primer is the most likely to hurt someone as it is light and travels at the highest speed. The case and bullet are significantly heavier and will not move much at all. Ammunition loaded in a firearm is dangerous. When it cooks off if it just like someone pulled the trigger.

[Rocketgeezer]

Any ammo can explode in a fire, but unless your right on top of it, you most likely would not have a major injury, from the shells anyhow, the gunpowder may go boom but the projectile is going to have no velocity, with a brass case cartridge, the brass is more dangerous than the lead, now if a loaded gun was to overheat to the point of detonation then the projectile would be leathel,

[jg1967]

Ideally if I can one day afford it I will buy a safe just for the bulk of my ammo. If there is a fire the ammo can go off in there without getting out but right now that's just not an option.

[eagleeyes]

definitely something to think about..........where and how you store your ammo and other flammable and explosive items..........