I almost caught my local gun range on fire.

[CountryBoy19]

I attempted to knock the bucket over and get it upside down to hopefully get the oxygen out of the bucket to put the fire out which I succeeded.

What I think happened was when I fired that last shot a hot .22 brass fell into the bucket and ignited all the unspent gunpowder inside the bucket.

These 2 sentences don't make sense. If you were able to smother the fire by removing oxygen from the equation then the fuel source was not unburned gun-powder. Gun-powder contains it's own oxidizer and does not need any outside oxygen to burn. What is more likely is that there may have been a minute amount of unburned powder in the bucket which in-turn ignited the dust. Despite what commons sense says, often times "dust" is not only combustible, but can actually cause explosions if it's airborn. That is because dust is often very fine particles of a combustile material (ie wood dust, grain dust, etc). In the bucket like it was it is much harder to ignite, but the presence of a bit of unburned powder would have helped that.

I also doubt hot brass started it, more likely it was a spark or burning ember inside a piece of brass that fell into the bucket.

Either way, glad you weren't injured and were able to put it out. Hopefuly the insight I provided can help people understand how this probably happened and how to prevent it in the future...

 

[Westside]

Extinguisher would be a great idea! Come to think of it, I don't recall ever seeing an extinguisher at any range, indoor or out. If any range owners are reading this, I hope they take it to heart.

Glad everyone was safe in the end!

indiana fire code requires all commercial buildings to have fire extinguishers. I am not sure how the calculate the size and number but when the fire marshal got done inspecting our building I was handed a list of fire extinguisher I needed to buy. It told me the numbers of each size I needed. we now have about a dozen fire extinguishers mounted around the building.

 

[searpinski]

Tell people the truth about what really caused the fire... "Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus."

 

[Pinkzebraglockgirl]

it's ssssssiiiiisssssstttttteeeeerrrrrrrr mmmuuuuaaaahhhhhh
in an evil voice.

btw glad to see your are still around have not seen a post from you in a while.

@pinkglockgirl please tell you you beat the ***** out of jay or at least kicked him in that broken leg of his for doing this and almost causing our indoor range to go up in flames. he needs a good whipping

No I think the scare of the fire was enough punishment. Plus the loss of any hair being burnt off. His thinking was quick or the whole range would have went up in smoke and I'm thankful for that. Glad that wasn't my 1st time there cuz it would be a long time before I went back and my sister said she is never going again. I'll take her to my outdoor range to try to get her to try it again. Hey Atleast jay wants to make everyone aware of the situation to prevent it from happening again. I seriously have never seen anything like it.

 

[actaeon277]

Pink, tell your sister fires happen all the time in buildings that don't have a firing range.
I don't think I've heard of or seen anything like that on a range before, and I've been shooting +30 years.
But I've probably been in a hundred fires while NOT at a firing range.

Also, good idea to look for exits, automatic defibs, and fire extinguishers when you walk into a place.

 

[actaeon277]

And Jay, I may have put bullets in your target.....
But this has that beat.
Burning a range down, way worse.

 

[lonehoosier]

And Jay, I may have put bullets in your target.....
But this has that beat.
Burning a range down, way worse.

I blame you for this. You are the last person that I seen use the bucket to rest on. You were sighting in your red dot.

 

[actaeon277]

I blame you for this. You are the last person that I seen use the bucket to rest on. You were sighting in your red dot.

And you were the one that suggested that. Were you trying to set me up, and got yourself instead.
I wonder if they've added emptying buckets on their to do list?

 

[RichardBD]

Thanks for the heads up. This seems like an unusual situation. I'd be curious to know what brand of ammo you were practicing with. I've used 5 gal buckets before too. Seems like I typically turn them open end down for greater stability and a it leaves a place to put a protective pad on to boot. Glad you came out without serious injury. The way things are going these days, if the media got hold of this, they would probably try to blame it on the gun I'm afraid.

 

[xM3RC1L3SS1x]

I bet that got your adrenaline going.

 

[Buck67]

I set Don't Guns indoor range on fire once. I was shooting an 1860 Colt 44 caliber loaded with blackpowder. That gun shoots sparks about 6 or 8 feet from the muzzle. One of the sparks landed in the expansion crack in the concrete floor. The crack was full of unburned powder that had collected there during the numerous times the floor had been swept to collect brass. The crack burned like a fuse in a cartoon with spurts of smoke and fire and then nothing for a couple of seconds when it would flare up again. It burned both directions until it came to a solid wall.

If I had to guess, I think that someone cleaning up the range dumped a mix of unburned powder, dirt and dust into the bucket that you chose to shoot on. The sweeper probably got interrupted and never dumped the bucket out. You probably lit off a couple handful of smokeless powder.

Buck67