Fire at the Gun Range

[PolarFBear]

Interesting news brief locally, Hampton TN. Indoor shooting range attached to the local gun store. Shooter told range master he had fired a "tracer" round. Ignited the back stop. Set fire to the range. Local authorities evacuated 3 - 4 truck loads of ammunition and fire arms. Shop was a nice one and is probably going to be a total loss. Enjoyed shooting there in inclement weather.

[Areoflyer09]

We lost a range in Indianapolis the same way, store survived but the range was a total loss and they’ve decided not to rebuild it. Majority of indoor ranges in the area now require you to buy their centerfire rifle ammo if you want to shoot those calibers in the range.

It’s sad that such rules exist, but it only takes one idiot to ruin things for everyone else.

[briandg]

Tracers? I can't comprehend how stupid one has to be to fire tracers, indoor or outdoor, wherever there is even the slightest risk of fire. Did this happen with the first shot, or did it take several of them bursting on the steel plates before it caught parts of the backstop on fire?

Did nobody on the range stop him, nobody in the control center? No fire extinguishers on site that were used to shut the fire down in a timely manner? How in the world did that chain of events happen and escalate to the point of burning down a building? It's not like a guy tossing a cigarette into the shred barrel in the back of a solvent manufacturing firm.

No, that range will not be back. I doubt that anyone is insane enough to start it over, not in the same place at least. How much would insurance cost, what sort of hoops would he have to jump through? Will the city allow it, since shooting ranges are an obvious hazard to life and property? Will his insurance (assuming that he had coverage for the equipmnent) pay enough to start him over?

One blockhead broke rules, or if not that, was stupid enough to fire unidentified ammunition, and destroyed a thing that is becoming increasingly precious, and one by one, vanishing.

Do you know what else he destroyed?

MY REPUTATION!

from now on, there are people in that town who will believe that gun owners are idiots, that they can't even be controlled and use common sense in the most restricted possible circumstances. What would have happened if the ammo magazine hadn't been evacuated in time? A couple cases of ammo had been set out near the backstop? At least one idiot deserves to be called a complete idiot. In the wake of that event, a large percentage of people who hear about this will have all of the confirmation that they ever needed that guns are for idiots who burn down houses and kill people and can't be trusted to use them even with controlled supervision. Brady foundation, schumer, they will all be passing this around as evidence that the 'guy next door' is an idiot who might eventually burn down the entire subdivision.

I'm going to guess that the thing had a sawdust and tilted steel backstop, the tracer compound was driven into the sawdust and smoldered, the smoke wasn't noticed because of gunsmoke, and by the time it was actually seen, the fire may have already been burning out of control. Fine sawdust that was fluffed out and full of air. In fact, there was a possible dust explosion hazard, if enough dust was thrown into the air by the rest of the shooters before the fire started.


it begs the question, why wasn't there an appropriate sprinkler system in place, or other safety equipment? Is there a possibility that there could have been industrial smoke detectors that could discriminate between 'normal' levels of smoke as would be found in an industrial setting, and higher levels indicating a smoky fire?

This should be a learning experience, it's something that nobody should ignore, and people in this business at any level should be asking questions about preventing it. The one question that would just be a waste of time is 'what are we going to do about the idiots?' We just have to bite the bullet and try to keep the idiots reigned in.

[PolarFBear]

Briandg: Interesting, and eloquent, post. The good news is the site was in a "rural" area. The "town" consists of the gun store, McDonald's and a convenience store. All three locations are popular hangouts.

[briandg]

At the time I looked there wasn't anything available but reports that there was a fire, it may not have been a bonehead with tracers. Hopefully we shooters won't wind up being blamed for something like this.

When catastrophe strikes, people are eager to throw blame and will use that event for their personal benefit.

For example, a man had a brake failure and died in the accident, and my father-in-law said that he shouldn't have been driving a Ford.

[JohnKSa]

DFW Gun Range in Dallas burned to the ground after a similar incident--tracer into the backstop.

Many indoor gun ranges use a chipped rubber backstop--it's cheap (recycled waste rubber) and very effective. The bad thing is that once something lights it, it's very hard to put out.

DFW Gun Range did rebuild, but it was shut down for quite a long time.

[HiBC]

"All attempts at foolproofing are folly,for the genius of fools is infinite"
William Blake, Proverbs from Hell.

I came scary close to starting a range fire once.
I was sighting in at 300 yds. My target holder was a couple of rebar forks holding a panel of the black cello-tex. For convenience,laziness,and not wanting loose trash to deal with,I stapled new targets on top of old targets.

No steel in my projectiles.I was shooting Noslers. It was a new scope install.Windage was a bit off. A bullet hit the rebar.

I'm looking through the scope. Is that a whisp of smoke? Nah.Can't be. Hmmmmm. That target is smoking!! This is sage,cactus,and grass land with a breeze. In the middle of no where.

Without regard for the usual tailgate spread of stuff,I slammed the tailgate shut and hurried myself downrange.

The target was just starting to flame,about a 4 in diameter burn when I hit it with my Gatoraide fire extinguisher. Good enough save,lesson learned? Don't let bullets,even copper and lead bullets,hit steel if there is ANYTHING combustable that could catch a spark. Grass,leaves,dry sod,dead tree,or paper targets.
I don't know how copper made a spark.
7 mm Rem Mag handloads.Nosler bullets. No possibility of any milsurp or steel projectile. I suspect a fleck of some sand or grit was stuck to the rebar.The bullet drove the sand into the steel? Only thing I can figure. Point,it can happen.

And always have an emergency Gatorade.

[TruthTellers]

I went to an indoor range when I was on vacation in New Hampshire a few years ago. I brought some guns with me and I asked what they don't allow to be shot. The response I got was you can shoot whatever you want, .50 BMG, machine guns, as long as you're the legal owner and it's not incendiary, Armor Piercing, or explosive, it's fine. I pressed and asked if black powder muzzleloaders were okay and the answer was a surprising yes.

Fast forward a year and I'm in Rhode Island and I go to an indoor range there and anything NFA regulated isn't allowed, muzzleloaders aren't allowed, reloaded ammunition isn't allowed, targets must be a minimum of 7 yards away with a pistol and 15 yards for a long gun, and you can't shoot faster than once per second unless you ask the grumpy RSO for permission.

Some indoor ranges have vastly different rules, but every indoor range should prohibit tracers for this reason and others. My outdoor range doesn't even allow tracer ammunition, even if the ground is covered in a foot of snow!

Indoors though, for the 50 to 100 foot distances that people would be shooting at, what's the point of firing a tracer? You get to see it for all of .05 seconds? That's really worth burning a building down, huh?

[mag1911]

Years ago some idiot used AP at a local indoor rifle range. Cavitated the steel back stop so much the range closed until they could find a certified welder who could put in a patch something like 8 inches thick. They put an example of a black tipped round and an empty AP box on the door to try to stop people from using those again.

It was touch and go whether the range would reopen. It cost the owner very big bucks to get it fixed and the welder cancelled a couple time due to emergency repairs he had to do on ships or boilers or something first.

[Tony Z]

Interesting thread. As I have my own indoor, private range (meaning only me!), in a warehouse building I own, I am sensutive to safety of myself and building contents. My backstop has no steel. But is approximately 3" of planking, backed by hay bales (positioned to shoot into ends), backed by 12" of criss-crossed planking, with a 16" concrete meat locker wall behind it all.

Hottest load has been .30-30 out of my TC Contender, and those never made all the way through. No riccochets. BUT, with this thread, another concern arises, and that being the heat of the round in the backstop. Is this a concern? By the way, I do have exhaust ventilation.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

i actually saw the concrete floor of a range catch fire once. All the unburnt powder caught between the crease of the floor and the wall ignited and started burning in little pops and flashes. The range employee’s attitude was “Yeah, that happens sometime.” They did eventually shut down that range and sweep it out.

[briandg]

I am always going on about chaos. Powder igniting in crevices in the floor? why not? muzzle flash doesn't always stop at the muzzle and plenty of partially ignited powder and unburned powder goes flying. Old concrete has plenty of gaps. There really is no prevention possible for every oddball event. If we can just get rid of stupid simple things we're on the right track.

Our city council attempted to pass a code, any house larger than 2,500 square feet outside of a certain boundary was to have sprinklers in new construction. Really simple. Water lines out there were small, tankers were fifteen minutes away, a house could be burned to the ground because inadequate equipment was on site. So, the developers and every other moose headed dork who was involved, even down to drywall hangers came to the meetings to scream about it. People wouldn't pay the extra ten grand on their million dollar homes. dead simple, dead stupid, but they thought that smoke alarms were enough.

Hibc, is it possible that you had the nosler/winchester that had a steel insert at the back?I don't remember what it was but it was the most complicated design for commercial ammunition I had ever seen.

John, it may have been chipped rubber now that you bring that up. Is a business fire usually that black? Rubber is pretty easily ignited I guess, somewhat like wood, and the stuff has plenty of air space to feed it. If it was shredded I can see a bullet setting it off. If it was the chunks that are fed into coal burning power plants, that makes it a little more complicated?

[TailGator]

The indoor range that I most commonly use, just a few minutes from my house, was closed for repairs late in 2017 after a fire. Employees I know said that a guy bought a bag of mixed ammo at a show and fired it there, not realizing that some tracer rounds were mixed in. It lit the rubber backing. The response from the fire department was pretty quick and it was controlled before it spread or intensified much. The shop stayed open and the range was closed for two or three weeks while repairs were made. The guy who did it felt really bad and swore off of gun show ammo, according to my friends.

[HiBC]

briandg: I have never bought or loaded anything combined tech or Winchester/nosler.

I'm almost certain it was a Ballistic Tip.

The entire list of every bullet variant fired in that rifle,ever:

168 Sierra Match King
168 Nosler Custom Comp
162 gr Hornady SST
150 gr Nosler Ballistic Tip

I'm pretty skeptical any of those by themselves could make a spark.Might there be a possibility of hot steel spall? Maybe.That rebar had a serious notch blown through it.

Or,as I said.Sand or grit contamination of the steel surface could be the "flint"

Regardless,that it happened is most of what I need to know.

Without being negative about your sprinkler system idea...There IS something amusing about sprinkler heads hanging from the ceiling downrange.

[briandg]

It is possible that steel can be hit hard enough by nearly anything to spark it. The impact has to be hard enough to strike off a small flake that has a great deal of energy in the strike. gravel, even other pieces of steel. I've never seen a steel plate spark, but that doesn't mean that a glancing hit from a super velocity rifle bullet couldn't cause that to happen. Weird things happen. I'm never going to say that 'nothing is impossible' but weird things happen. You can strike sparks with hammers on nails, even. The thing that is most relevant, I guess, is that your bullet had an enormous amount of energy in it, striking a spark would only require the right materials and the right impact.

Our ground here has a lot of chert and flint, and when I have shot out in the no man's land outside of town, if it was dark, impact on the piles of gravel would strike sparks sometimes. Just a hard smack on the two rocks.

Yes, sprinkler systems and guns would make a neat combination. The police academy had an indoor range, the ceiling had concrete baffles. a row of sprinklers was run behind one of those baffles, iirc.

[JohnKSa]

I've seen enough evidence that I accept that even copper-jacketed, lead-core bullets can cause 'sparks'--or at least something that looks like sparks.

The link below shows pictures of bullet strikes on steel targets. Even the copper-jacketed, lead-core bullet impacts show evidence of glowing material ricocheting off the steel target.

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

[briandg]

The energy involved in any bullet impact is more than necessary to strike a visible spark if the conditions are met, some of those sparks could release enough energy to ignite material nearby, it's hard to conceive of mushy lead and copper striking a spark that could be a source of ignition. Then again, I didn't imagine that a cigarette could light gasoline.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by briandg

The energy involved in any bullet impact is more than necessary to strike a visible spark if the conditions are met, some of those sparks could release enough energy to ignite material nearby, it's hard to conceive of mushy lead and copper striking a spark that could be a source of ignition. Then again, I didn't imagine that a cigarette could light gasoline.

It's not a function of energy. Neither copper nor lead against steel can strike a spark. That's why shops use brass hammers in environments where sparks could set off explosions -- brass (or copper) on steel doesn't spark.

[briandg]

There IS enough energy to strike a spark, it needs a very solid projectile that is capable of doing it, and proper conditions. I still find it inconceivable that lead and steel could do so, but we have a member who reported that it happened. Millions, maybe billions of lead rounds have struck steel without reports of trouble.

But as I said, a flinty or other hard stone, even local concrete will spark upon impact with other pieces, or even when breaking up. Even a rimfire cartridge can smack a stone or ferrous metal hard enough to break off shards that spark.

Grinding steel throws off sparks because a iron is easily ignited, tiny bits are exposed to enormous friction heat, and ignite when exposed to oxygen. I once read a great article that showed a few examples of what various steel alloys spark like.

I've never seen non ferrous metals spark under any conditions.

[JohnKSa]

The document in the link I provided contains conclusive proof that bullets (even copper-jacketed lead bullets) can start fires under the proper conditions.

What's interesting is that in the results, solid copper bullets were actually more likely to start a fire than steel bullets.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

The document in the link I provided contains conclusive proof that bullets (even copper-jacketed lead bullets) can start fires under the proper conditions.

But not by sparks.

Originally Posted by article

Physical processes are reviewed with the conclusion that kinetic energy of bullets is transformed to thermal energy by plastic deformation and fracturing of bullets because of the high-strain rates during impact. Fragments cool rapidly but can ignite organic matter, particularly fine material, if very dry and close to the impact site.

[JohnKSa]

But not by sparks.

That's sort of interesting. I had never thought of exactly what constitutes a spark and what doesn't.

It seems that the various definitions for "spark" are, as one might expect, quite general and many would certainly categorize small particles of glowing metal as sparks. That seems to be consistent with general usage. People talk about sparks being thrown off by a grinder and many of those "sparks" are actually bits of glowing metal.

Here are a few definitions for spark.

a small fiery particle thrown off from a fire, alight in ashes, or produced by striking together two hard surfaces such as stone or metal.

an ignited or fiery particle such as is thrown off by burning wood or produced by one hard body striking against another.

An incandescent particle, especially:
a. One thrown off from a burning substance.
b. One resulting from friction.

The pictures in the article definitely depict a shower of glowing/incandescent/fiery particles being thrown off the target.

But even if we were to decide on a definition of "spark" that ruled out small glowing metal fragments, it seems it would be a difference without distinction. There doesn't seem to be any question that even copper and copper/lead bullets can start fires under the proper condition. Debating the specific definition of "spark" doesn't change that.

[briandg]

John, this whole thing is making me think a lot harder than I want to tonight. Electric spark? A bit of plasma excited by an electron packet passing through it. A spark created by other energies? A particle raised to incandescent heat that is in the process of oxidizing. Would a grinder strike a spark in a flow of nitrogen, or a welder in a flow of helium?

A third type, maybe Copper sparks? Is that just a bit of metal that absorbed so much energy that it reached incandescent heat, but hasn't created a self sustaining state of 'burning'?

A steel spark will continue to build heat as it burns, as will ignited magnesium, these things generate heat during combustion, as do many bio organic things, or even charcoal, right? But since a spark off of copper doesn't combust, won't that tiny little packet of heat energy dissipate so easily that igniting a piece of cloth should be literally impossible?

The entire question is whether a bullet or other object can dump enough energy onto another surface to blast off superheated particles, don't you think? Oh, heck yes. part of the energy energy of forty grains of powder smashing into steel, no matter what the impacting object is releases a metric fartload of energy and could break off a chip of steel that would absorb enough energy to ignite. But, both lead and copper are too soft and malleable to release that sort of energy, right? Those impacts spread the kinetic energy out both in time and into deformation, right?

One of my most important questions, is why do ferrous metals spark, but most non ferrous metals won't when ground by a super hard stone or ceramic? Here's my thought. Steel has a brittle structure and it is broken off in chips at high speed, and they ignite in air because smashing them off generates so much heat. Iron is also very active with oxygen, especially in the form of steel. Most common non ferrous metals, aluminum, copper, lead, that stuff is scraped off at temps too low to ignite the metal, and ordinarily, if they do strike a spark upon impact, it would cool very rapidly, because it contains very little energy.

Here's something that I just can't fit into my tired head. Brass on a grinder smears and leaves brass alloy dust. Grinding steel leaves oxide. Watch it grind, and you can see those superheated particles literally explode as they pass through the oxygenated air. Particles break up.

So, it seems to me that malleable,not particularly active metals shouldn't under ordinary circumstances strike a spark, observation over centuries kind of supports that. But unusual circumstances that can't be understood by a dolt like me will absolutely allow sparks of some sort to pop off of a malleable metal.

If a person packs enough ke, through velocity, into a lead projectile, say maybe 20,000fps, would you expect it to dissolve into a fireball upon impact with the proverbial immovable object? I would, I guess...

[briandg]

There was a remark, I believe the op, that mentioned spalling. Rebar is terrible steel, full of flaws and loose bits. When a super high energy impact breaks off a bunch of particles from a contaminated or very brittle piece, could those small particles that have just been smashed to dust start to oxidize on impact, creating a self sustaining combustion, a burning spark that has enough energy to ignite a single fiber on the rough target paper, and that tiny, little packet of heat could push other tiny fibers into combustion, eventually creating a larger, self sustaining combustion?

This is EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS when Otis next door tosses a cigarette butt onto his dry lawn, and that little bit of barely smoldering material creates an inferno, a few molecules at a time.

I think that I'm going to add something that seems appropriate. Earlier last summer I was working on a project that involved wood and steel, I was working on finishing the wood at the same time I was working on some steel. Sparks off of my grinder reached about a foot away from the wheel and ignited the 0000 steel wool pad. I smelled it as it smoldered, it wasn't really visible.

If I had fibrous cloth or paper next to it, oil or solvent, and I had taken a lunch break, boy, that would have sucked, and it was all because of a few whit hot sparks.

[HiBC]

I'm not claiming to know the root cause.I think non sparking tools,such as berrylium copper,are a different issue.
They do not strike at 2800 fps.They do not suddenly remove and spew a quantity of steel into whatever is beyond.

I don't know much about depleted uranium anti-tank projectiles.My understanding is that when the projectile strikes the tank hull,the material that wreaks havoc inside the tank is called "spall" and it is composed of the steel tank hull.Pictures of this seem pretty hot and sparky.

Now I'll consider a different angle. As a prototype machinist/moldmaker,my employer invested some in my education. I attended seminars by both General Electric (who makes Lexan) and a rather brilliant consultant named John Klese. We discussed long polymer carbon chains,etc.
The instructors spoke specifically about the difficulty of both drilling and tapping Lexan (polycarbonate)
Even hand tapping with water as a lube,enough local heat can be generated to melt the surface of the material. That melt/cool can create number of problems.

It was explained that the tapping operation was releasing tremendous heat by breaking these long carbon chain molecules. Enough to melt the threads at hand tapping speeds.

I imagine steel has similar carbon bonds,and a 2800 fps bullet of any material releases the heat from those bonds as it spews steel out the back of the plate.

It does not come out as a nice little round plug.

I was there.I fired the shot,I watched the target smoke.It was flaming when I got there.

No amount of skeptical feedback will change that.The technical minutia may have value in determining root cause,but it does not change the outcome. The target caught on fire. Some folks get so wrapped up in the academics of what they "know" they dismiss what can be observed.

And we shooters who are responsible enough to not want to start fires might take heed.
Including shooting up old derelict cars or washing machines,etc we may come across. Fires are very bad PR. It would be bad if some of the California fires were attributed to shooting steel junk.