Gun Safe Blows Up ?

[Waitone]

http://magicvalley.com/news/local/update-legislator-s-wife-injured-in-home-explosion/article_76f3dda6-0abe-11e2-a89a-0019bb2963f4.html

Room converted into a gun safe blows up.  Fire department has an idea why but is not talking.
Oily rags?  Reloading supplies?  Fracked natural gas?\

Update
http://magicvalley.com/news/local/explosion-could-have-sparked-from-oily-rags/article_4d056070-0d7d-11e2-b06a-001a4bcf887a.html
Fire department fingers oily rags and reloading supplies

[kgbsquirrel]

*eyebrow*

Even with a substantial amount of oily rags I'm not seeing how that could chemically create a Sprengel mixture with modern smokeless powder, which itself will burn sedately with a yellow flame if not contained in some sort of pressure vessel (ie. the chamber of a gun). Did this guy have a crapload of black powder and a crate of primers sitting around perhaps?

[Waitone]

Maybe the path was:

oily rags --> powder --> stored solvents

Seems as likely as smokeless powder blowing.  Article did say the room was sealed but then you got the problem of a huge airspace.

More will have to come out.

[mtnbkr]

I thought the oily rag theory of fire starting was with linseed oil and similar materials.  It is my understanding certain oils, when they dry, create heat which causes combustion.  However, that doesn't happen with your garden variety oily rag (motor oil, etc).

Chris

[Boomhauer]

You're not supposed to store a bunch of oily rags together...

Very possible it could have started from the oily rags. Very possible.

[mtnbkr]

You're not supposed to store a bunch of oily rags together...

Very possible it could have started from the oily rags. Very possible.

Yes, but I thought that was based on household chemicals and oils we don't typically have these days.

Not saying it isn't a fire hazard, but I question the spontaneous combustion risks of the stereotypical pile of oily rags.

Chris

[Boomhauer]

Yes, but I thought that was based on household chemicals and oils we don't typically have these days.

Not saying it isn't a fire hazard, but I question the spontaneous combustion risks of the stereotypical pile of oily rags.

Chris

Stuff like linseed oil will do it, and he might have had some old linseed rags in there from refinishing a stock or something and other oils/solvents would do it.

[AJ Dual]

Stuff like linseed oil will do it, and he might have had some old linseed rags in there from refinishing a stock or something and other oils/solvents would do it.

Yeah, I thought it had to be a plant-based unsaturated oil that could oxidize, and the rags provided the high surface area to generate the heat etc.

I'm wondering if something else like a copper solvent couldn't have also reacted, making things "just so"...

[kgbsquirrel]

We had a fire located in the rag locker on the Iwo Jima while in port once. It was more of a smoulder-smoulder-poof-small flame-cue fire extinguisher, rather than a KaBOOM! And this was the oily rag storage locker for an entire pocket carrier. I'm just not seeing how this fellas gun room could go high order on oily rags and smokeless propellant alone.

[brimic]

Guy stores a few 8lb containers of bullseye (or is it 4198?) above a couple of lbs of ffffG, blackpowder explodes spreading a cloud of smokeless powder into the room setting off a conflagration/SEE?

Far fetched, I know....

[Brad Johnson]

Some linseed oil-soaked rags in a plastic bag could easily be the iginition point.  Takes a lot fewer than people think.  A few rags, a sealed bag... poof.

Brad

[brimic]

Some linseed oil-soaked rags in a plastic bag could easily be the iginition point.  Takes a lot fewer than people think.  A few rags, a sealed bag... poof

When i was a kid, one of my neighbor's garage burned down like that. She was refinishing some furniture and had a few linseed oil soaked rags.

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

Explosives. Maybe old grenades, artillery shells, dynamite, ammonium nitrate, who knows for sure. I suspect there's quite a bit of explodey goodness out there that people have stored just-in-case.

[Fly320s]

Some linseed oil-soaked rags in a plastic bag could easily be the iginition point.  Takes a lot fewer than people think.  A few rags, a sealed bag... poof.

Brad

Doesn't need to be sealed, as I learned two or three years ago. But my linseed rag didn't get explodey, just smokey.