[Chainmail]

Picatinny Arsenal used to be a site for a naval ammunition depot back in the '20s. On July 10th, 1926, Lightning struck near an ammunition bunker and started a fire. Navy and Marine personnel raced in to fight the fire and then over 600,000 tons of TNT detonated, killing people out to a half mile radius from the explosion center.

http://thevane.gawker.com/july-10-1926-the-day-nature-blew-up-a-town-in-new-jer-1602586498

[eastforker]

that would be a billion, 200 million pounds. I kind of doubt that.

[21twelve]

I wonder if that is the explosion that scattered so much material (a lot that did not explode - yet). There is a huge area that they just put up a big fence and called it a nature preserve. Rather than combing the hundreds of acres for unexploded ordnance. Workers say there are some big bucks back in there.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

My uncle told me of a similar incident at the DuPont in Old Hickory Tennessee plant back in the 1940s.

The fire started at one end, slowly crept through all the buildings blowing them up all through the week. Everyone in town gathered on a hill to watch the fireworks.