The government should instead always choose the highest bidder, or maybe always drop the lowest 50% of the bidders, so that there is no incentive to go too low. Not sure what it means in terms of game strategy, fairness and whatnot, but you should never buy the cheapest of anything.
One way to fix the bidding system is good regulations around this, so that all bidders meet the minimum requirement of safety to the workers and the environment. However, perhaps this is still not a great system since there will always be an incentive to cut corners given the competitive game these companies would be playing.
One solution is just to hold executives and the board criminally responsible. You could also prevent any profit going to investors when safety issues happen
The part that makes me really sad is that their experience with military explosives caused them to make mistakes which inexperienced people probably wouldn't have made. Military explosives are designed to avoid accidental explosions. They're relatively resistant to shock and fire. They are, however, often toxic and burning is the safest way to dispose of them. Black powder is barely toxic but easily provoked. So the workers didn't have a healthy fear of, say, a big pile of black powder in a plastic bag. Amateur chemists would have taken one look at that and headed for the hills.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. Donaldson made a big mistake, and their workers paid for it. I'm sure that the company did too, in settlements, lawsuit payouts, and reputation, but that's cold comfort.
I work in the UXO (unexploded ordnance) industry. This clip is used in every training class I have had to go to. We, in our industry know this incident very well. The subcontractor was forced to shut down his business (rightly so IMHO). The sad part that this clip doesn’t share with the viewers is the fact that the subcontractor also ran a school certifying these guys in UXO. 100% totally avoidable
Yeah I guess those at the VSA sure know how to pick em. Btw there is a well established way of disposing fireworks, and its been around for ages, you stick them in the ground and light the fuse.
@@krakenwoodfloorservicemcma5975 they’re working with something that is likely to kill them if the explosive is set off; so it is absolutely necessary that they succeed the first time.
Black powder in open containers, and black powder dust on the floor, without any understanding of the basics of static electricity? From a firm normally in charge of military munitions disposals?
Military ordnance does not contain black powder. It is safe to assume they had absolutely no experience with handling materials which are easily set of by static electricity or friction. Military explosives as well as mining explosives are much more resistant to friction, static electricity and even mechanical impact. The only dangerous things in ordnance are the fuses. I assume they thought: no fuses, only minor hazards.
@@herbertzausenhaim246 As a computer programmer with no experience handling explosives beyond consumer fireworks and the occasional pistol cartridge, even I know about black powder and static/friction/impact. If they "didn't know", they were being willfully blind.
They were still idiots. I knew not to do stupid shit like this before I went to high school. Any hobbyist hand loader knows not to do that, and there are hundreds of thousands of those. Ditto black powder shooters. Nobody gave a shit. Anyone anywhere can phone law enforcement EOD for guidance. EOD folks enjoy blowing things up and could be paid to assist in their off time just like police bounce at bars. Had it been my task the first thing I'd do is have a local fab shop build a 3/8" thick steel burn box resembling a trench box and with steel grating on top to contain flyers and fragments. I'd have them weld a feeder pipe of Schedule 40 steel going from the outside to the burn area inside, angled downwards with the outside higher than the operators face so they can't do anything stupid, and another pipe mounted lower for forced draft air. Build a roaring fire, let it burn to a bed of coals, then an operator outside could feed fireworks from behind armor. If a munition CAN'T hurt you, problem solved. Steel is cheap. Life is precious and lawsuits are expensive. The bottom of the burn box could be designed for easy ash removal. Not rocket science.
@@obfuscated3090 I don't entirely disagree with what you said, I just hope you realize just how big some display fireworks are. The biggest can be almost 2 feet across. That's a really wide feeder pipe. I would recommend a 'belcher lid' on the feeder tube--a steel plate to cover the tube's mouth, with a hinge at the top, instead of having it open, due to the size of the opening required.
You can not rely on fireworks to actually work. It might be, that a large portion of the firework does not go off or that explosives remain in the shell.
0:51 How come the guy’s forearms and hands are so incredibly detailed, we can see every shadow,, every sinew, tendon, and vein but his sweater is a formless blob
As someone that was once a kid and disassembled many fireworks for the sake of making some frakenstein firework, I can attest to the fact that disassembling fireworks is far more dangerous than using them as manufactured.
@@crash.override When I was a teen, I somehow, though "connections" got the materials necessary to make my own black powder. We ground out own carbon from hard coal, reground coarse sulfur, and mixed both with the potassium nitrate in the appropriate proportions. Then we packed the stuff in small glass vials, used commercially-made time-stable fuse cord from another "source" and blew stuff up in the back yard. - We were lucky idiots.
In the 1980s here in San Diego, a bunch of illegal fireworks that had been seized from individuals, exploded while being stacked inside a bunker for later disposal. Two people were killed.
DEI's motto not very well thought out: "Initial Success or Total Failure" I would definitely try to avoid total failure, and not list it as an acceptable result in my mission statement.
These are display fireworks marked as "consumer grade fireworks" with the "1.4" diamond instead of a "1.3"...all that means is a "consumer grade" firework can contain no more than a set amount of powder. Now more powder means more better so companies try to have these(1.3)shipped in labeled as 1.4 so they can sell them on the shelf to the public as "The good stuff". It all comes from China. Now in my training the safest way to dispose of this is to wire it all up in batches, just like a professional display and set it off remotely. Never disassemble. If something doesn't go off it's almost always the fuse. You add a new fuse and try again. Always by remote or long enough fuse that you are nowhere near it when it's ready to go. Way safer and way faster than trying to soak and hand disassemble semi trailers full of these things.
eploidsam every year me and a group of buddies get together and collectively get around $10,000 worth of fireworks for the 4th. We usually spend 7-8 hours setting them off, and by the end of the night we just gather up whatever is left, throw it all in the bonfire, take cover, and enjoy the show. Seems to be a pretty effective way to dispose of fireworks so far....
Five hundred gram But I bought kilo displays in Vermont In Vermont you can buy fireworks Can not use them. I'm sure the package say Soak in water 24 hours, So....soak them for 30 days. They can be destroyed
Yep, I was at a fireworks demo years ago where they had had a shipment of an item come in a little "hot". It was pulled from the shelves, and they were instructed to dispose of it. The club I belonged to (a pyrotechnics association) got the job of wiring them all up, and shooting them as the finale to the public demo! worked great, no muss no fuss. Just a spectacular display of fireworks. On more than one occasion, we've been asked to deal with confiscated pyro. So, we shoot it. It's the safest way to dispose of it- using it the way it was intended! small quantities of leftover duds can be dealt with- either by re-fusing them if possible, or by burning. There's never a good reason to disassemble large quantities of the stuff. Black powder and flash powder are easily ignited- and the results aren't pretty! just light the damn things off!! What these guys were doing was crazy and foolish to an extreme...
It would be awesome if simulations of all of the cases were made into some sort of playable simulator where you can add safety measures to see a different outcome.
One of my friends works in bomb disposal and his company destroys confiscated fireworks, too, i myself have a background in mining and had basic training regarding the handling of explosives and blasting. Many of the confiscated products contain flashpowder which is super difficult to handle safely. Their method is just going to a military training ground they have a contract with. They dig a large hole with an excavator, put in a waterproof antistatic liner and just dump or carefully stack the material in the hole depending on what it is. A blasting cap and a small booster charge or some high order military explosive, for example c4, is put in the middle of the pile, choice depends on what product is handled. Then the pile is covered with another liner and the hole is filled with clay, after the excavator is driven away they just blow it up. The reason for this method is that in the risk analysis the fireworks are considered as not safe to disassemble. There is a federal department for physics and technology giving recommendations for handling of explosive or combustable product and for example firecrackers with flashpowder are per se considered unsafe to disassemble, the regulations are a lot stricter than for example in the US. By burying the product under 3-6 meters of dirt, the compression in the buried pile is so high a booster (same boosters used in heavy ANFO rock blasting) or initiation HOE-charge is able to guarantee the complete conversion of the explosive mass contained within the product even if it has a thick cardboard or plastic shell. The method used is derived from a standart procedure to detonate small explosive military devices or ammunition that is in bad condition and therefore considered unsafe/impossible to defuse or move by vehicle.
I'd go with multiple booster charges in the periphery to ensure everything is detonated. What they did was akin to finding a WWII bomb buried and dismantling it with a hammer and chisel taken to the fuse after ensuring the fuse isn't sensitive by hitting it with a sledgehammer.
When I was in the military working with solid fuel rocket motors, we were always trained to constantly ask the question...what could go wrong? I actually saw how several tragedies were avoided this way.
Safety culture over profit culture. When you’re working with dangerous materials or processes, that’s the only way to remain safe as a worker. Efficiency questions should only start being answered after you’re done asking the safety questions
Worked for a contractor that disposed of seized fireworks, we had a room with 3 foot thick reinforced concrete walls, boxes were stacked until the room was a third full, a igniter with a remote fuse was placed in the boxes and the doors were closed but only held closed by a 2x4 pine board, when the igniter was triggered the doors would blow open but were delayed by the 2x4 breaking, this tempered the gas release to a point where it could be drawn into a particle trap to keep the pollution down, the remains in the room were then swept into a non static cardboard container which was fed into a industrial car shredder and then sent off site for chemical separation, everyone had to wear anti static oversuits and anything used had to be certified non static
@@Thematic2177 but then again just letting them sit there not doing anything is even worse because they’ll eventually decompose into who knows what kind of nasty substances
Jerry Hu they mentioned in the video that there are already huge stores of fireworks all over the country. I don’t think storage is the big issue, it’s disposal that’s dangerous
What part of ILLEGAL dont you understand? Round them up and send them back where they came from. I dont want my tax money supporting all these ILLEGALS.
Fifth Business *really fucking stupid I mean seriously though all they needed was a couple barrels of water, it will render them useless as long as it stays wet. It’s not hard to destroy this stuff
I heard the words 'black powder' and a list of friction or potential ignition points and was not surprised by the result. You need to be seriously careful with BP.
I guess about as stupid as any 20 year-old kid who’s working his first job, being told by his boss to do something and assuming the company he works for knows what they’re doing. Even if he’s against the idea a majority of them won’t sacrifice a job by saying no. In my summer job working in LA for a major oil company I had as one of my tasks of climbing up the stairs of huge oil tanks each day and manually gauging their depth. I had to do it the same time each morning, even when thunderstorms were around and lightning was too close for safety. I certainly felt uncomfortable, hesitant and scared... but it was what I was instructed to do. Safety is a culture that has to be instituted corporate wide. Even today you will hear so many people who say “Who needs safety.... who needs OSHA”.
I’d bet this was some guys that just happened to hear about the job coming up for bid and thought, “Dispose of fireworks? How hard could it be?” Harder than they thought.
That would be more expensive and with greater liabilities. Say they put it on the range and blew them up. They'd have to make sure everything blew up, which is a problem with fireworks, because they have multiple stages that are designed to survive explosions like that. Wouldn't have much training value. Just full of liabilities. Wanna get sued? Why not fire them off one by one? $$$ to pay for fireworks technicians to do it safely.
Because they don't normally handle fireworks. I'm sure they could figure it out, but it would be more cost effective to get pyrotechnics to do it, which is more effective than destroying them.
I think the lesson seen here is that there was multiple ways this could of been disposed of with better results, thought up by regular people with no experience.
This same thing just happened in Los Angeles a couple months ago when LAPD was disposing fireworks in a neighborhood using a special truck. Please do a video on that!
To everyone suggesting 'just set them off' and 'sell them to display companies' I'm 100% sure any display company would no way want to purchase fireworks from China of unknown origin, manufacturering process and composition. They have insurance policies and there own lives too you know. Doubt their insurance would pay out if they had an accident.
TheBrodsterBoy Works with me 👍 I'm surprised the army can't be utilised to dispose of them, they have the land, knowledge and facilities. Not sure what volume of fireworks need to be disposed of.
deezelfairy seriously? i only buy fireworks of unknown origin. those are the good ones. even the fireworks deemed "safe" by the state are still responsible for deaths and injuries. fireworks are dangerous, thats most of the fun in playing with them.
You ever consider remote ignition in the proper location and setting them off the WAY THEY WHERE DESIGNED??? Safe or not safe, it’s far safer then the way they where doing it, AND A LOT MORE FUN. Seriously, set them all out in a large safe area, attack remote ignition sources to everything, set them off, and after, properly dispose of any duds, most likely a handful compared to forklifts full of ordinance. To me this is like California confiscating ammunition and asking for it to be disassembled instead of I don’t know, Fired!? Some times the answer is really that simple and over complicated solutions have more issues.
worse, they were probably out of date. Fireworks only have a shelf life of 18-24 months. They had to be kept (as evidence) until the legal proceedings were over and were probably expired.
@@ApolloTheDerg Explosives don't have a lot of shelf life. Dynamite sweats, and can be set off by jostling if it gets old (plus critters like to chew on older sticks). fireworks have a shelf life of 18 to 24 months. The groups that have experience with setting up fireworks (firework display companies) absolutely will not deal with dodgy mislabeled old fireworks because of insurance reasons. VSE probably TRIED to get someone to take them and got nowhere. Donaldson's first idea (soaking in diesel fuel and then burning) was probably a good, if not great, idea. a better one would have been to build a proper disposal chamber and burn/detonate the fireworks in there. It's the disassembly that was the very bad idea.
The fireworks began exploding. Imagine that ? " You have reached DEI fireworks disposal.... Curly, Moe & Larry are currently out of the office, please leave a message."
they were probably out of date by that point. Fireworks have a shelf life of 18 to 24 months, IIRC, and they're too dangerous to use in displays at that point. It's very likely the legal proceedings associated with the case lasted long enough that they couldn't just use them up, and they had to be kept as evidence in the meantime.
@@tashkiira7838 best way to disarm explosives is to detonate them remotely. This company should have known this and it's what they should have done, set then off remotely
"The ceiling? What do you mean it's on the ceiling? But why would it be up there? I don't know, either. Well, thought we already potty-trained the boy."
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Hey there nokithecat, that's my understanding too. Fireworks typically use a soluble oxidizer like potassium nitrate. Saturation with water during the grinding process prevents ignition during the grinding process. The supernatant fluid can be pulled off, separating the oxidizer from the insoluble fuel and catalyst (carbon and sulfur.)
One of my school's chemistry teachers was injured in a fire that destroyed a fireworks factory he worked at, it was nuts since the fireworks were basically just going off in a cascade for hours. There was a classic car showroom next door too. Emphasis on 'was'.
This company had EOD experience, right? They knew that 100 grains of black powder doesn't behave anywhere near the same as 100kg or 100 tons. Were they trying to recover salable products from the fireworks? There seem to be three obvious solutions. 1) just light the fireworks. 2) use conventional explosives to destroy the fireworks 3) Probably the best one, use a purpose-built, thick steel walled disposal unit. I think the real failure here was the lowest bidder policy regardless of the functionality of their plan.
I have no idea, but given the mention of EPA RSCA regulations, perhaps the obvious solution of explosion based disposal is incompatible with environmental protection standards
Yes, "purpose-built, thick steel walled disposal unit." my thoughts exactly, a wood fire in a small shipping container would probably do the trick. The ash would then have to be disposed of as with most other hazardous chemical waste.
Donaldson had *military* EOD experience. The military doesn't do black powder anymore. Big difference. since they were trying to soak the fireworks in diesel, I doubt they were trying to gain profit from the disassembly. 1) Not a good idea. fireworks have a shelf life of 18 to 24 months from date of manufacture. Between storage at the manufacturer, shipping, and the legal proceedings (the fireworks had to be kept as evidence), lighting the fireworks off could have had harsh consequences (as in, worse than the 5 dead people here). 2) a little better as an idea, but some of those devices looked like multistage shells. they're designed to resist the blasts from previous stages until the fuse goes off. there's a non-zero chance you'd end up with live ordnance, which is a very scary thing. 3) I agree, this is the best bet. I'm thinking a large steel box solid with a heavy steel grating on top, with fire at the bottom and a nice reinforced steel feeder tube with a 'belcher lid', where the feeder tube is taller than the head of the guy dumping stuff in. only problem is that you have to make the feeder tube big enough to handle any devices necessary--I've seen pictures of starburst shells for display fireworks that were almost 2 feet wide, though those were custom-made for the display in question.
@@MonaichFother Shipping containers are made with Corten steel. that's mild steel, and only a tenth of an inch thick. Not to mention most have a wood floor.. I think I'd want something more along the lines of 3/8 inch thick. buying 3/8 inch diamond plate and hiring a master welder for a few days sounds a lot cheaper than ruining a $15000 shipping container.
@@MonaichFother The important thing about any container is that containment on its own increases the risk of explosion by retaining heat and pressure -- containment is exactly what makes the difference between black powder burning and exploding. On the other hand, *not* containing the fireworks involves the near certainty that some of the fireworks are going to function as designed and take off like, well, rockets, with the fire hazards involved. Both courses have their hazards. But the container has to have some way of releasing pressure, and it has to be designed to fail in the safest possible way -- vents, a rupture panel facing in a safe direction, a container shape that focuses the energy of any blast directly upward, something like that. Some places that got lucky with their topography can take advantage of a natural feature to make a disposal site that minimizes the damage of a possible blast.
Honestly I think the main issue they were facing here is time. they wanted it done quickly and when you want things done quickly sometimes safety is not your first concern. Sad part is they should have just dug a deep pit (like 10-15 ft deep and 50 feet long) then light them facing the wall of the pit with an angled piece deflecting anything away from them and another angled piece of steel that directs any fliers into the floor of the pit. Or they could have just continued burning them the exact same way they were doing it but putting steel blast shields around it to stop any fliers, sparks or shrapnel. honestly theres a million things they could have done better. dang they could have probably just put it all on a cheap rickety boat and shipped it out to sea and lit it up from a mile away. Honestly anything would have been better, they chose literally the worst possible option.
Black powder is not particularly sensitive to friction, impact or spark, but Flash powder on the other hand is extremely sensitive to friction, impact and spark and is way more powerful than black powder. In some shells, flash powder is mixed in with black powder to increase it's bursting strength. They had to know the difference between black powder and flash powder, but may not have known it to be mixed together in shells to increase bursting strength, and believed it to be pure black powder. Black powder self-confines (explodes without confinement) at 50 lbs., but Flash powder self-confines at only 30 grams. I believe flash powder was the cause of this explosion whether mixed in with black powder or separately on its own. It is very dangerous stuff.
"Soak the explosives in fuel for 48 hours to make them safe for handling" - DEI instruction manual (This reminds me of that old looney toons gag where somebody would light a match in a dark room and it turns out to be a fireworks storage shed)
That's not necessarily true, as many fireworks are exceptionally well waterproofed. Additionally, perchlorates (one of the oxidizers in fireworks) are poorly water soluble except at elevated temperatures. The safest solution is simply NOT to disassemble them. They can be blown up with HE or shot as intended... By people who know what they are doing of course.
You can extract with a 15% methanol/water solution at 75 C, nothing will detonate, and the waterproofing agents and perchlorates won't last an hour, all of that crap is going into solution. The strong dependence of perchlorate solubility on temperature means you can easily drop those out of solution selectively by controlling temperature and plate filtering downstream. The nitrates you can then remove by anion exchange media, and the waterproofing crap will come out as still bottoms when you distill your process solvent. Not a difficult process overall.
*All you have to do is soak them for a long time in a mixture of antifreeze and water* . After soaking you can grind them up under water making sure the water penetrates the insides of the shells. The antifreeze acts so the water doesn't evaporate. Other additives could be used to make it even more inert. Then they can be buried in a landfill or dried out and burned like any other combustible material.. Soaking oxidizers in diesel is how you make ANF0
yep its precisely how the Irish Republican Army made Car Bombs in Northern Ireland during the Troubles - fill a barrel with Ammonium Nitrate prills (a fertiliser used by farmers) and then top up with Diesel fuel and an place an incendiary igniter on the top. The resulting explosion usually makes the car or van vanish.
Did anyone go to jail for this? It's clear that nobody qualified enough participated in this project. Filling up garbage bags with black powder? Seriously?
iliasasdf Gross negligence, reckless conduct causing great bodily harm, willful ignorance, failure to perform due diligence, false representation to a party in a contract; these are just some ideas but I'm not a lawyer.
Yeah. "Oh, the system has been down for a while, it's obviously at a steady state, just start the cooling procedure." If a coworker said that I would have been like "Yeah, go for it." and not given it a second thought.
First thing I have to say is .... illegal Chinese fireworks...? I'm surprised they weren't set off during the ocean voyage packed on a container ship As for disposal any one of those sticks could have gone off in their hands at anytime as they were manhandling them while hacking away at them with knives if just one was improperly packed at time of manufacturing which given the quantity, the law of percentages was fully engaged. Everything about their "disposal" was dangerous. Whoever heard of soaking fireworks in diesel fuel
the one variable that gets me is that it rained. if it had not, they wouldn't have set up shop inside. sure, something was bound to go off, but it may not have been this deadly.
This happened because the government got involved and otherwise honest people weren't allowed to just have their fun and dispose of the fireworks the right way, by using them for their intended purpose of entertainment. Fireworks are designed to be fired off, not disassembled! No point in making fireworks illegal or confiscating festive accessories.
My buddy works in military ordnance disposal and they also destroy illegal fireworks for the government. Here, the disassembly of fireworks is considered unsafe per se and therefore never done. The standart procedure is the same as for ammunition and ordnance unsafe to defuse, disassemble or move by vehicle, bury it and blow it up under controlled conditions.
If I made a firework disposal plan I would use water. Not only would soaking everything with water prevent fire. The water also leaches the potassium nitrate out of the black powder rendering it much safer. Many of the individual components, if processed properly, could be disposed of in a landfill. I feel that by treating fireworks like high explosives people ignore other options available.
Water was the first thing that came to my mind too. Ironically it would have saved those men's lives if they had just set off all the fireworks one crazy night lol
I worked with black powder before, so even a slow move can ignite it and static exposure. So the workers exposed themselves to a deathzone with the garbage bags, just being summer, the metal transporteer.
Hmm wonder why they don't detonate them in a specially designed container like the bomb squads do (of course would need to change the scale or have a lot of them), but to me detonating them and then incinerating anything left over in a vessel designed to release pressure/deal with heat seems the only logical solution.
The trouble with that is: how can you ensure that all the different explosive parts inside that chamber explodes ? Things that create 3 stars of different color that is 3 different small bombs with metallic powder and blackpowder inside each.
I have worked in this field. There are Many rules and standard practices. These people were way out of compliance. It doesn’t matter if they were trying to be economical to maximize profits or didn’t know what they were doing, the result is the same. The loss of life was unnecessary and the young guys who died probably never received proper training. In my experience it takes a three day class just enter such a storage area, pick up a box and leave. Two weeks, butt in the seat classroom time with tests you must pass in order to do any work in there at all. There is certification based on that training and it requires refresher courses to stay current. It is no joke and will make you very respectful of your situation. You will see examples that aren’t computer simulations as seen in this video. Experience can make you dismissive if you let it, I suspect the older fella who died inside the bunker was the only one there with training and experience.
anyone whose ever used things that go boom, knows you don't hem it up unless you want maximum damage. i mean, a cave? really? you build lightly constructed wood sheds, small ones at the greatest distance from each other as possible. if one pops, it doesn't light the others off.
I'm on team just soak em in water. And if the cardboard is waterproof then add a cosolvent that is able to dissolve the waterproof coating. No explosions needed!
I think the problem with this method is that your still stuck with a lot of hazardous materials to dispose of afterwards. Being wet the material is somewhat safe, but after drying out i would think it would still be a fire, explosion hazard.
What happens when they dry out? I say take them to the beach when the wind is going away from shore, aim at the water, and light the fuse. One box at a time.
The ingredients of black powder, charcoal, potassium nitrate, and sulfur, are all fertilizer components and are safe for the environment. After thoroughly soaking and mashing/mixing them up, they should be able to be sent to the landfill and they will never dry out enough to ignite once underground. The only sticking point is the orange labels that indicate that they were once explosive. Also, shame on the woman that blamed them for not performing a fresh set of paperwork, as if that would have prevented catastrophe. The approved plan was already proving disastrous, and the later actions taken still fell within the original plan. It's blame-shifting like this that perpetuates these massive cock-ups.
@Zeksteve I agree. I was going to add "mix with mud or clay", but my comment was already getting long. Renting a wet ball mill would have taken so much less effort and would have been so much safer.
Some do and some don't. The ones that don't undercut their competitors with lower prices. Regulations and laws benefit industry because they all have to play by the same rules. In the old days the companies that polluted the most had the lowest production costs. The other benefit to all of us is that their competitors will report them for environmental violations because it is unfair competition.
Damn, I never even thought about the plastic trash bags. But that's why I don't have a disposal business, I know I'm not qualified--unlike this company.
Amber Maynard Yes - note they were professional scale items labelled as consumer items, probably with incorrect instructions and safety distances etc. Probably have people setting them of 25 feet away when the real safe distance is 25 yards.
Absolutely insane. And then they went into a tunnel that looks like a giant cannon barrel. RIP. I'd imagine they should just set them off how they're meant to be, in a controlled environment, with a safety control room. They could be set off with the push of a button from the safe room. Frankly find it hard to believe that the US military doesn't have some sort of knowledge they could share about safe ways to dispose of black powder explosives.
This problem was caused by bureaucratic overreach. Let people buy and sell the fireworks they want, and there will be no warehouses full of confiscated fireworks waiting years to be disposed of. Much like drug prohibition is the actual source of "drug problems."
Incredible incompetence all around. Soaking fireworks in diesel fuel is supposed to make them safer for disposal? Uhh, no. A very safe, easy way to dispose of them would be to soak them for a few weeks in a large water tank, and have the pregnant water solution evaporated, and sell the evaporite content to fertilizer companies (the oxidizer in fireworks are primarily potassium and sodium nitrate, with a touch of other stuff like barium nitrate, etc.). The leftover fuels and cardboard (which are not water soluble) would then be safe to dispose of in a regular incinerator. Instead the Feds and a large Federal contractor decided to pass the buck to a local doofus who thinks a rusty old 55 gallon drum qualifies as a "thermal flash unit" lol. Can't the government do a damned thing right?
tetrabromobisphenol .... or giving them to a bomb dispoal team to be taken to a demolition range and blown up en masse as done with unexploded ordinances... And 'doofus' was the appropriate term I was looking for
Tom Ives - The fireworks were seized by Federal law enforcement, who contracted with private enterprise for disposal. Private enterprise fucks up due to inadequate self-regulation and you're blaming the local government for what exactly?
Or, or, hear me out, Light the fuse and get away. For fucks sake we have remote ignition systems! Use the damn fireworks like they where built to be used, ONE TIME!
"No good way to dispose of illegal fireworks" Well i'm no explosives expert, but how about setting them all off on independance day every year? I'd think that'd be quite effective at getting rid of them.
ill always think back to the time when i was sitting infront of a bon fire with my family and a bunch of our family friends when one of our drunk uncles decided to throw a roll of blackcats wrapped around a bottle rocket into a fire to "see what would happen" final destination happened . we watched as the black cats started popping then the bottle rocket launched up with the black cats popping around it and it caused the rocket to fly between myself and my cousin . and i remember both of us following it with our eyes at it landed about 20 ft behind us in the back of our uncles truck that had the fire works sitting in it. my cousin and i looked back at eachother and around the same time her face made the "oh shit" look was when my father and uncles all ran to the truck grabbed as many boxes as they could and started tossing them 10' 20 ft away from the truck. as my dad was on the back of the truck throwing boxes full of different fire works to my uncle while the roman cancles still burning in a box that we all see is now on fire. my father screamed run and before he finnished the word it went from dead silent to 4th of july over the white house as fire works started launching in all directions. one of the huge cannon ones that launch into the air exploded on the truck next to my dad who barely jumped out of the back and destroyed the packaging it was in raining dozens of them fire balls around the property where they started exploding. i had a roll of black cats get flung about 50 ft over the house while on fire and popping and land 5 ft behind me and my brother who basically turned around and got lit tf up by black cats unable to run. my cousin also got nailed by one of the exploding fire balls . but it wasnt lit and never exploded thankgod . next morning we had over 200 burn spots around the property. whole chunks of grass had to be turned over back of the truck had the plastic lining melted and one of the tired got popped or burned . my cousin had a concussion. my brother and i were littered with hundreds of tiny little burn marks from the hot powerder and blackcats hitting us. my uncle got lit on fire and had to get a skin graph on his ass cause he had one of the fire balls land at his feet and explode as he was running away. all in all nobody died but over 20 people had some form of mental damage from it. and i was only 9 so looking back on it always seemed kinda fun and epic but now that im older and know how deadly one fire work can be . i just picture if we hadnt started unloading fire works the second we seen the candle land in the truck . that entire truck would prob been blown apart considering it had about 3 grand worth of fire works in the back of it. also we burned an entire tree down. . couldnt stop the fire so we flooded the yard so it wouldnt spread. . . fucked up an acre of land out in splendora texas was a fun time. .
The biggest question here is: Why doesnt the ATF have any guidelines on fireworks disposal? Fireworks are an explosive, so I thought they would have a procedure for safe disposal.
I love these videos and it does underscore the need to have govt. regulations put on companies. But I always get nervous because we have also seen what over-regulating businesses can do as well.
They don't, there are plenty of workplace accidents where the supervisor is first or second to die. in the PEPCON blast, the two deaths were the plant's controller and the plant manager (office jobs). There was a factory making resin countertops that had an explosion when I was working in an aerosol plant down the road, only injuries were one worker who had 3rd degree burns to most of his body and the supervisor who went to save him (according to one of the supervisors in the aerosol plant, her husband was working at the resin factory as a shipper).
Drown the fireworks in water for a _week_ then disassemble them while wet, with bronze tools. The pieces go into cardboard boxes _without_ any plastic bags, then those boxes are burned. The water becomes saturated with nitrates, but can just be used over and over, with much of the nitrates ending up in the paper components.
Year's back the US government had a black powder plant, operated by various contractors, like the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant in Charlestown Indiana. It was built in the early 1940's, and I think it ran into the Vietnam war. It was a massive plant, that covered many thousands of acres of land. In recent year's, the government finally demolished most of the buildings, and turned the land over to local government for private use. Including a big Amazon warehouse.
You wanna get rid of these fireworks? Just hand em out to pyros with an FEL who would gladly use them for fun in July 4th celebrations. Or just ship them out to an island, dig a pit, toss the boxes in, pour in some gasoline and a remote trigger, jump on the boat and sail away while enjoying the show. I don't understand disassembling as a strategy.
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"Its [DEI's] proposal was determined to be the best overall value for the Government." Lowest bidder for the win!
Always the main cause.
Race for the bottom!
The government should instead always choose the highest bidder, or maybe always drop the lowest 50% of the bidders, so that there is no incentive to go too low. Not sure what it means in terms of game strategy, fairness and whatnot, but you should never buy the cheapest of anything.
One way to fix the bidding system is good regulations around this, so that all bidders meet the minimum requirement of safety to the workers and the environment. However, perhaps this is still not a great system since there will always be an incentive to cut corners given the competitive game these companies would be playing.
One solution is just to hold executives and the board criminally responsible.
You could also prevent any profit going to investors when safety issues happen
The part that makes me really sad is that their experience with military explosives caused them to make mistakes which inexperienced people probably wouldn't have made. Military explosives are designed to avoid accidental explosions. They're relatively resistant to shock and fire. They are, however, often toxic and burning is the safest way to dispose of them. Black powder is barely toxic but easily provoked.
So the workers didn't have a healthy fear of, say, a big pile of black powder in a plastic bag. Amateur chemists would have taken one look at that and headed for the hills.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. Donaldson made a big mistake, and their workers paid for it. I'm sure that the company did too, in settlements, lawsuit payouts, and reputation, but that's cold comfort.
This is a great insight into why they would handle black powder that way, thanks
I work in the UXO (unexploded ordnance) industry. This clip is used in every training class I have had to go to. We, in our industry know this incident very well. The subcontractor was forced to shut down his business (rightly so IMHO). The sad part that this clip doesn’t share with the viewers is the fact that the subcontractor also ran a school certifying these guys in UXO. 100% totally avoidable
I was wondering why they were making mistakes that one would believe to be common sense but your explanation actually makes total sense
I'm honestly surprised that fireworks still _use_ black powder, given how dangerously-unstable it is!
"Initial success or total failure"
Looks like this was the latter...
Yeah I guess those at the VSA sure know how to pick em.
Btw there is a well established way of disposing fireworks, and its been around for ages, you stick them in the ground and light the fuse.
the ironing was delicious
@@ROMSradiommmm iron
Minute 2:13 good eye
Wow, that was seriously DEI's slogan. Man.......that's not a good slogan at all o.O
"Initial success, or total failure!" -- Best slogan, ever.
At the very least, they did keep their word.
It doesn’t even make sense but I like it too.
@@krakenwoodfloorservicemcma5975 they’re working with something that is likely to kill them if the explosive is set off; so it is absolutely necessary that they succeed the first time.
@@dizzypenguin6509What Could Possibly Go Wrong😮 Meh!!!😱💩😈💔🚧
Black powder in open containers, and black powder dust on the floor, without any understanding of the basics of static electricity? From a firm normally in charge of military munitions disposals?
Military ordnance does not contain black powder. It is safe to assume they had absolutely no experience with handling materials which are easily set of by static electricity or friction. Military explosives as well as mining explosives are much more resistant to friction, static electricity and even mechanical impact. The only dangerous things in ordnance are the fuses. I assume they thought: no fuses, only minor hazards.
@@herbertzausenhaim246 As a computer programmer with no experience handling explosives beyond consumer fireworks and the occasional pistol cartridge, even I know about black powder and static/friction/impact. If they "didn't know", they were being willfully blind.
@@herbertzausenhaim246 C4 was used during Vietnam war to heat combat rations.
They were still idiots. I knew not to do stupid shit like this before I went to high school. Any hobbyist hand loader knows not to do that, and there are hundreds of thousands of those. Ditto black powder shooters. Nobody gave a shit. Anyone anywhere can phone law enforcement EOD for guidance. EOD folks enjoy blowing things up and could be paid to assist in their off time just like police bounce at bars. Had it been my task the first thing I'd do is have a local fab shop build a 3/8" thick steel burn box resembling a trench box and with steel grating on top to contain flyers and fragments. I'd have them weld a feeder pipe of Schedule 40 steel going from the outside to the burn area inside, angled downwards with the outside higher than the operators face so they can't do anything stupid, and another pipe mounted lower for forced draft air. Build a roaring fire, let it burn to a bed of coals, then an operator outside could feed fireworks from behind armor. If a munition CAN'T hurt you, problem solved. Steel is cheap. Life is precious and lawsuits are expensive. The bottom of the burn box could be designed for easy ash removal. Not rocket science.
@@obfuscated3090 I don't entirely disagree with what you said, I just hope you realize just how big some display fireworks are. The biggest can be almost 2 feet across. That's a really wide feeder pipe. I would recommend a 'belcher lid' on the feeder tube--a steel plate to cover the tube's mouth, with a hinge at the top, instead of having it open, due to the size of the opening required.
Every episode be like:
The CSB recommends you train your people.
This is funny because it's actually too true.
Hahaha this
Hahaha this
Hahaha this
Hahaha this
To properly dispose of illigal fireworks, light the fuse and run away...
You're hired, let's go get some government contracts. Paid to light fireworks = win/win
You can not rely on fireworks to actually work. It might be, that a large portion of the firework does not go off or that explosives remain in the shell.
GEEZ YES SO MUCH RED TAPE INSTEAD OF COMMEN SENSE 👍🏽
Daniel Rose Then they burn them from a remote distance. Borrow a flame thrower.
@@ApolloTheDerg yes Genius
0:51 How come the guy’s forearms and hands are so incredibly detailed, we can see every shadow,, every sinew, tendon, and vein but his sweater is a formless blob
They were probably stock models and textures and they were not all created by the same person or with the same purpose.
Wow didn't notice that. They look real lol
I guess sweaters are just like that sometimes
Are you watching on a phone? The sweater looks fine to me.
@@jacobshirley3457 must be low video quality, shows up fine on a phone. Or maybe they forgot their glasses? Haha
damn, DEI needed a better slogan.
Hmm...maybe: "Work For D.E.I. And You Might D.I.E." Ok, maybe not. ;)
How bout switch around to I.E.D.
Not really, seems pretty accurate. Either they’ll die or not
😂😂😂
Haha, yeah, but you mean acronym.
As someone that was once a kid and disassembled many fireworks for the sake of making some frakenstein firework, I can attest to the fact that disassembling fireworks is far more dangerous than using them as manufactured.
I hope most of your fingers are still intact. * Cue "Arrested Development" lesson. *
@@crash.override When I was a teen, I somehow, though "connections" got the materials necessary to make my own black powder.
We ground out own carbon from hard coal, reground coarse sulfur, and mixed both with the potassium nitrate in the appropriate proportions.
Then we packed the stuff in small glass vials, used commercially-made time-stable fuse cord from another "source" and blew stuff up in the back yard.
-
We were lucky idiots.
I used to poke holes in the top of "tube" fireworks, pour gasoline in them, and set them on fire.
I was a dumb kid.
@@theendofmyropemydude Kids these days will never believe us.
@@theendofmyropemydude my dad would light tennis balls on fire and bowl them down the street gutters
Seeing the picture of the memorial really hit me in the feels. "I love you." "We'll miss you." I feel sorry for the families.
It's always painful to see beers or fishing rods or other very personal effects at memorials. That's a special kind of hurt.
In the 1980s here in San Diego, a bunch of illegal fireworks that had been seized from individuals, exploded while being stacked inside a bunker for later disposal. Two people were killed.
yeah they shouldve just set em off...
Lol
Irony noted
😃😃☠️☠️😃😃☠️😃😃😃☠️☠️😃😃😃😃☠️☠️😃☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
Geee geee gaaa gaaa gooo gooo!!
@Eggmond Xavier These were illegal fireworks, not "legal property".
Honestly, I think it's really nice that the narrator put in the effort to actually pronounce Hawaii correctly
Revenge of the glottal stop!
@@vikkimcdonough6153 not just for Glaswegians \o\ \o/ /o/ 🤣
@@vikkimcdonough6153 You like EGS and linguistics, I think I like you.
DEI's motto not very well thought out: "Initial Success or Total Failure"
I would definitely try to avoid total failure, and not list it as an acceptable result in my mission statement.
These are display fireworks marked as "consumer grade fireworks" with the "1.4" diamond instead of a "1.3"...all that means is a "consumer grade" firework can contain no more than a set amount of powder. Now more powder means more better so companies try to have these(1.3)shipped in labeled as 1.4 so they can sell them on the shelf to the public as "The good stuff". It all comes from China. Now in my training the safest way to dispose of this is to wire it all up in batches, just like a professional display and set it off remotely. Never disassemble. If something doesn't go off it's almost always the fuse. You add a new fuse and try again. Always by remote or long enough fuse that you are nowhere near it when it's ready to go. Way safer and way faster than trying to soak and hand disassemble semi trailers full of these things.
Exactly, and a handful of dud’s is much more manageable then the massive amount of fireworks alone.
eploidsam every year me and a group of buddies get together and collectively get around $10,000 worth of fireworks for the 4th. We usually spend 7-8 hours setting them off, and by the end of the night we just gather up whatever is left, throw it all in the bonfire, take cover, and enjoy the show. Seems to be a pretty effective way to dispose of fireworks so far....
Five hundred gram
But I bought kilo displays in Vermont
In Vermont you can buy fireworks
Can not use them.
I'm sure the package say
Soak in water 24 hours,
So....soak them for 30 days.
They can be destroyed
They had to conform to the EPA environmental regulations also to that was probably more important than doing it safely
Yep, I was at a fireworks demo years ago where they had had a shipment of an item come in a little "hot". It was pulled from the shelves, and they were instructed to dispose of it. The club I belonged to (a pyrotechnics association) got the job of wiring them all up, and shooting them as the finale to the public demo! worked great, no muss no fuss. Just a spectacular display of fireworks.
On more than one occasion, we've been asked to deal with confiscated pyro. So, we shoot it. It's the safest way to dispose of it- using it the way it was intended! small quantities of leftover duds can be dealt with- either by re-fusing them if possible, or by burning. There's never a good reason to disassemble large quantities of the stuff. Black powder and flash powder are easily ignited- and the results aren't pretty!
just light the damn things off!! What these guys were doing was crazy and foolish to an extreme...
The explosion was so powerful in the animation, the supervisor’s soul flew out of his body 6:02 😱
using you to fall back down again.
About as funny as a car crash .
Funny comment, though it was some kind of completely gray fire extinguisher >->
very happy seeing you here ;)
Fr I guess I ain’t the only one who watches these for shits and giggles
It would be awesome if simulations of all of the cases were made into some sort of playable simulator where you can add safety measures to see a different outcome.
yeah but you'd need a $50000 rig just to calculate the physics involved... I would play it though ;)
@@gunfuego Eh, Im sure my i3 laptop could hand- *burning sounds*
Omg, I'd definitely play this version of the Sims.
It would stand to reason that simulator could also be adjusted to create more dangerous and deadly outcomes. N O W we’re cookin’ with gas!
Daaaeemn very good idea
One of my friends works in bomb disposal and his company destroys confiscated fireworks, too, i myself have a background in mining and had basic training regarding the handling of explosives and blasting. Many of the confiscated products contain flashpowder which is super difficult to handle safely. Their method is just going to a military training ground they have a contract with. They dig a large hole with an excavator, put in a waterproof antistatic liner and just dump or carefully stack the material in the hole depending on what it is. A blasting cap and a small booster charge or some high order military explosive, for example c4, is put in the middle of the pile, choice depends on what product is handled. Then the pile is covered with another liner and the hole is filled with clay, after the excavator is driven away they just blow it up. The reason for this method is that in the risk analysis the fireworks are considered as not safe to disassemble. There is a federal department for physics and technology giving recommendations for handling of explosive or combustable product and for example firecrackers with flashpowder are per se considered unsafe to disassemble, the regulations are a lot stricter than for example in the US. By burying the product under 3-6 meters of dirt, the compression in the buried pile is so high a booster (same boosters used in heavy ANFO rock blasting) or initiation HOE-charge is able to guarantee the complete conversion of the explosive mass contained within the product even if it has a thick cardboard or plastic shell. The method used is derived from a standart procedure to detonate small explosive military devices or ammunition that is in bad condition and therefore considered unsafe/impossible to defuse or move by vehicle.
I'd go with multiple booster charges in the periphery to ensure everything is detonated.
What they did was akin to finding a WWII bomb buried and dismantling it with a hammer and chisel taken to the fuse after ensuring the fuse isn't sensitive by hitting it with a sledgehammer.
When I was in the military working with solid fuel rocket motors, we were always trained to constantly ask the question...what could go wrong? I actually saw how several tragedies were avoided this way.
Interesting
Safety culture over profit culture. When you’re working with dangerous materials or processes, that’s the only way to remain safe as a worker. Efficiency questions should only start being answered after you’re done asking the safety questions
DEIs motto, "Initial success or total failure" doesnt instill confidence. I think Wiley Coyote used the same one. Lol
Donaldson Enterprises has the best slogan ever.
It's accurate.
And the moment their first method failed, they started adjusting it on the fly without thinking. Total failure was the inevitable result.
It's more like Ronald McDonaldson Enterprises.
It's like a slogan from The Simpsons or something, jesus christ
This has been used as an unofficial motto for military EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) units for a long time
Worked for a contractor that disposed of seized fireworks, we had a room with 3 foot thick reinforced concrete walls, boxes were stacked until the room was a third full, a igniter with a remote fuse was placed in the boxes and the doors were closed but only held closed by a 2x4 pine board, when the igniter was triggered the doors would blow open but were delayed by the 2x4 breaking, this tempered the gas release to a point where it could be drawn into a particle trap to keep the pollution down, the remains in the room were then swept into a non static cardboard container which was fed into a industrial car shredder and then sent off site for chemical separation, everyone had to wear anti static oversuits and anything used had to be certified non static
Interesting. How was the particle trap constructed?
Yknow, it seems to me like the safest way to get rid of the things would probably be to... set up a fireworks display.
It would be very unsafe to set up a firework display using illegal fireworks of unknown origin.
TheUiopas no more unsafe than killing 5 of your employees doing it they way they did.
@@Thematic2177 but then again just letting them sit there not doing anything is even worse because they’ll eventually decompose into who knows what kind of nasty substances
@@Thematic2177 You have no idea what you’re talking about
"total success or complete failure"
wtf that motto is so ominous
Christ they're fireworks, store em til the fourth of July and have a professional fireworks company rig them and put on one hell of a show.
Corey Schmidt
Just ship them to me !
I'll get rid of them. No disassembly required.
Storing them could be a bit of a hassle, they have to be kept dry, secure and away from potential ignition sources.
Jerry Hu they mentioned in the video that there are already huge stores of fireworks all over the country. I don’t think storage is the big issue, it’s disposal that’s dangerous
What part of ILLEGAL dont you understand? Round them up and send them back where they came from. I dont want my tax money supporting all these ILLEGALS.
Or sell them back to asia
"Initial Success, or Total Failure." Definitely reassuring
How stupid do you have to be to carry around open boxes of loose black powder?
*ignorant
Fifth Business *really fucking stupid
I mean seriously though all they needed was a couple barrels of water, it will render them useless as long as it stays wet. It’s not hard to destroy this stuff
I heard the words 'black powder' and a list of friction or potential ignition points and was not surprised by the result. You need to be seriously careful with BP.
I guess about as stupid as any 20 year-old kid who’s working his first job, being told by his boss to do something and assuming the company he works for knows what they’re doing. Even if he’s against the idea a majority of them won’t sacrifice a job by saying no.
In my summer job working in LA for a major oil company I had as one of my tasks of climbing up the stairs of huge oil tanks each day and manually gauging their depth. I had to do it the same time each morning, even when thunderstorms were around and lightning was too close for safety. I certainly felt uncomfortable, hesitant and scared... but it was what I was instructed to do.
Safety is a culture that has to be instituted corporate wide. Even today you will hear so many people who say “Who needs safety.... who needs OSHA”.
@@ienjoylife right on point. a lot of places like that forsure, cutting corners, or for profit, ignorance/forgetfulness is a big key lead to.
I’d bet this was some guys that just happened to hear about the job coming up for bid and thought, “Dispose of fireworks? How hard could it be?” Harder than they thought.
Last time they do that.
The supervisor walks like he needs the restroom
etronics moses this comment made me laugh out loud when I watched it back.
I think that was the 50-year-old guy, the guy outside at boomtime was the supervisor and they gave him a different outfit.
No.1 lesson from all USCSB videos: Don't be the first one to do something. Always follow protocol.
Why the hell dont they ship them to the military and let engineers and eod blow them up during training?
I was just thinking about that myself
That would be more expensive and with greater liabilities.
Say they put it on the range and blew them up. They'd have to make sure everything blew up, which is a problem with fireworks, because they have multiple stages that are designed to survive explosions like that. Wouldn't have much training value. Just full of liabilities. Wanna get sued? Why not fire them off one by one? $$$ to pay for fireworks technicians to do it safely.
Why the hell don't they ship them to the military that could lit them up during 4th of july ?
Because they don't normally handle fireworks. I'm sure they could figure it out, but it would be more cost effective to get pyrotechnics to do it, which is more effective than destroying them.
cougar10ag Can't scam the tax payers that way.
2:11 _"Initial success or Total Failure"_
Well, there you go, it was a coin flip from the get go.
I think the lesson seen here is that there was multiple ways this could of been disposed of with better results, thought up by regular people with no experience.
0:07
I just love how his tone and the music just goes from happy celebration to absolute horror in 6 seconds
PLOT TWIST: The supervisor had life insurance policies on all his workers.
D:
he was smoking outside and flick his ashes over a trail of BP that lead inside
Let's give it a goo...
Don't think you know what a supervisor is, they don't own the company
This same thing just happened in Los Angeles a couple months ago when LAPD was disposing fireworks in a neighborhood using a special truck. Please do a video on that!
To everyone suggesting 'just set them off' and 'sell them to display companies' I'm 100% sure any display company would no way want to purchase fireworks from China of unknown origin, manufacturering process and composition.
They have insurance policies and there own lives too you know. Doubt their insurance would pay out if they had an accident.
TheBrodsterBoy Works with me 👍
I'm surprised the army can't be utilised to dispose of them, they have the land, knowledge and facilities. Not sure what volume of fireworks need to be disposed of.
deezelfairy
seriously? i only buy fireworks of unknown origin. those are the good ones. even the fireworks deemed "safe" by the state are still responsible for deaths and injuries. fireworks are dangerous, thats most of the fun in playing with them.
You ever consider remote ignition in the proper location and setting them off the WAY THEY WHERE DESIGNED??? Safe or not safe, it’s far safer then the way they where doing it, AND A LOT MORE FUN.
Seriously, set them all out in a large safe area, attack remote ignition sources to everything, set them off, and after, properly dispose of any duds, most likely a handful compared to forklifts full of ordinance.
To me this is like California confiscating ammunition and asking for it to be disassembled instead of I don’t know, Fired!? Some times the answer is really that simple and over complicated solutions have more issues.
worse, they were probably out of date. Fireworks only have a shelf life of 18-24 months. They had to be kept (as evidence) until the legal proceedings were over and were probably expired.
@@ApolloTheDerg Explosives don't have a lot of shelf life. Dynamite sweats, and can be set off by jostling if it gets old (plus critters like to chew on older sticks). fireworks have a shelf life of 18 to 24 months. The groups that have experience with setting up fireworks (firework display companies) absolutely will not deal with dodgy mislabeled old fireworks because of insurance reasons. VSE probably TRIED to get someone to take them and got nowhere. Donaldson's first idea (soaking in diesel fuel and then burning) was probably a good, if not great, idea. a better one would have been to build a proper disposal chamber and burn/detonate the fireworks in there. It's the disassembly that was the very bad idea.
The fireworks began exploding.
Imagine that ?
" You have reached DEI fireworks disposal.... Curly, Moe & Larry are currently out of the office, please leave a message."
Why didn't they just give them a blow torch to burn the outer casing off?
I wish I thought of that genius
"No good way to depose of them"
How about using them?
they were probably out of date by that point. Fireworks have a shelf life of 18 to 24 months, IIRC, and they're too dangerous to use in displays at that point. It's very likely the legal proceedings associated with the case lasted long enough that they couldn't just use them up, and they had to be kept as evidence in the meantime.
@@tashkiira7838 best way to disarm explosives is to detonate them remotely. This company should have known this and it's what they should have done, set then off remotely
@@bryan0x05 who could have thought that the smart way to dispose of explosives is blowing them up
@@GoronTico Not them, that's for sure.
Man, I bet the supervisor thanked his nagging wife for calling him.
"The ceiling? What do you mean it's on the ceiling? But why would it be up there? I don't know, either. Well, thought we already potty-trained the boy."
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
I've had static shocks from the plastic wheels on office chairs.
Hey there nokithecat, that's my understanding too. Fireworks typically use a soluble oxidizer like potassium nitrate. Saturation with water during the grinding process prevents ignition during the grinding process. The supernatant fluid can be pulled off, separating the oxidizer from the insoluble fuel and catalyst (carbon and sulfur.)
Ive done this but of course they shouldve put on a fireworks display.
One of my school's chemistry teachers was injured in a fire that destroyed a fireworks factory he worked at, it was nuts since the fireworks were basically just going off in a cascade for hours. There was a classic car showroom next door too.
Emphasis on 'was'.
This company had EOD experience, right? They knew that 100 grains of black powder doesn't behave anywhere near the same as 100kg or 100 tons. Were they trying to recover salable products from the fireworks?
There seem to be three obvious solutions.
1) just light the fireworks.
2) use conventional explosives to destroy the fireworks
3) Probably the best one, use a purpose-built, thick steel walled disposal unit.
I think the real failure here was the lowest bidder policy regardless of the functionality of their plan.
I have no idea, but given the mention of EPA RSCA regulations, perhaps the obvious solution of explosion based disposal is incompatible with environmental protection standards
Yes, "purpose-built, thick steel walled disposal unit." my thoughts exactly, a wood fire in a small shipping container would probably do the trick. The ash would then have to be disposed of as with most other hazardous chemical waste.
Donaldson had *military* EOD experience. The military doesn't do black powder anymore. Big difference. since they were trying to soak the fireworks in diesel, I doubt they were trying to gain profit from the disassembly.
1) Not a good idea. fireworks have a shelf life of 18 to 24 months from date of manufacture. Between storage at the manufacturer, shipping, and the legal proceedings (the fireworks had to be kept as evidence), lighting the fireworks off could have had harsh consequences (as in, worse than the 5 dead people here).
2) a little better as an idea, but some of those devices looked like multistage shells. they're designed to resist the blasts from previous stages until the fuse goes off. there's a non-zero chance you'd end up with live ordnance, which is a very scary thing.
3) I agree, this is the best bet. I'm thinking a large steel box solid with a heavy steel grating on top, with fire at the bottom and a nice reinforced steel feeder tube with a 'belcher lid', where the feeder tube is taller than the head of the guy dumping stuff in. only problem is that you have to make the feeder tube big enough to handle any devices necessary--I've seen pictures of starburst shells for display fireworks that were almost 2 feet wide, though those were custom-made for the display in question.
@@MonaichFother Shipping containers are made with Corten steel. that's mild steel, and only a tenth of an inch thick. Not to mention most have a wood floor.. I think I'd want something more along the lines of 3/8 inch thick. buying 3/8 inch diamond plate and hiring a master welder for a few days sounds a lot cheaper than ruining a $15000 shipping container.
@@MonaichFother The important thing about any container is that containment on its own increases the risk of explosion by retaining heat and pressure -- containment is exactly what makes the difference between black powder burning and exploding.
On the other hand, *not* containing the fireworks involves the near certainty that some of the fireworks are going to function as designed and take off like, well, rockets, with the fire hazards involved.
Both courses have their hazards.
But the container has to have some way of releasing pressure, and it has to be designed to fail in the safest possible way -- vents, a rupture panel facing in a safe direction, a container shape that focuses the energy of any blast directly upward, something like that. Some places that got lucky with their topography can take advantage of a natural feature to make a disposal site that minimizes the damage of a possible blast.
4 employees in their 20s with one dude going outside? They for sure lit up a joint
Honestly I think the main issue they were facing here is time. they wanted it done quickly and when you want things done quickly sometimes safety is not your first concern. Sad part is they should have just dug a deep pit (like 10-15 ft deep and 50 feet long) then light them facing the wall of the pit with an angled piece deflecting anything away from them and another angled piece of steel that directs any fliers into the floor of the pit.
Or they could have just continued burning them the exact same way they were doing it but putting steel blast shields around it to stop any fliers, sparks or shrapnel. honestly theres a million things they could have done better. dang they could have probably just put it all on a cheap rickety boat and shipped it out to sea and lit it up from a mile away. Honestly anything would have been better, they chose literally the worst possible option.
Black powder is not particularly sensitive to friction, impact or spark, but Flash powder on the other hand is extremely sensitive to friction, impact and spark and is way more powerful than black powder. In some shells, flash powder is mixed in with black powder to increase it's bursting strength. They had to know the difference between black powder and flash powder, but may not have known it to be mixed together in shells to increase bursting strength, and believed it to be pure black powder.
Black powder self-confines (explodes without confinement) at 50 lbs., but Flash powder self-confines at only 30 grams. I believe flash powder was the cause of this explosion whether mixed in with black powder or separately on its own. It is very dangerous stuff.
"Soak the explosives in fuel for 48 hours to make them safe for handling" - DEI instruction manual
(This reminds me of that old looney toons gag where somebody would light a match in a dark room and it turns out to be a fireworks storage shed)
DEI was like, okay were done, We disposed of all the fireworks.
Oh no 🤦♂
Totally thought the rain would be a savior, should have kept it outside
Can we take a moment to appreciate the pronunciation of Hawai'i? From back in 2013 no less!
That's not necessarily true, as many fireworks are exceptionally well waterproofed. Additionally, perchlorates (one of the oxidizers in fireworks) are poorly water soluble except at elevated temperatures. The safest solution is simply NOT to disassemble them. They can be blown up with HE or shot as intended... By people who know what they are doing of course.
You can extract with a 15% methanol/water solution at 75 C, nothing will detonate, and the waterproofing agents and perchlorates won't last an hour, all of that crap is going into solution. The strong dependence of perchlorate solubility on temperature means you can easily drop those out of solution selectively by controlling temperature and plate filtering downstream. The nitrates you can then remove by anion exchange media, and the waterproofing crap will come out as still bottoms when you distill your process solvent. Not a difficult process overall.
*All you have to do is soak them for a long time in a mixture of antifreeze and water* . After soaking you can grind them up under water making sure the water penetrates the insides of the shells. The antifreeze acts so the water doesn't evaporate. Other additives could be used to make it even more inert. Then they can be buried in a landfill or dried out and burned like any other combustible material.. Soaking oxidizers in diesel is how you make ANF0
yep its precisely how the Irish Republican Army made Car Bombs in Northern Ireland during the Troubles - fill a barrel with Ammonium Nitrate prills (a fertiliser used by farmers) and then top up with Diesel fuel and an place an incendiary igniter on the top. The resulting explosion usually makes the car or van vanish.
Did anyone go to jail for this?
It's clear that nobody qualified enough participated in this project. Filling up garbage bags with black powder? Seriously?
Right? A bomb disposal company of all things!
Go to jail for what? There were no standing regulations regarding the disposal process.
iliasasdf Gross negligence, reckless conduct causing great bodily harm, willful ignorance, failure to perform due diligence, false representation to a party in a contract; these are just some ideas but I'm not a lawyer.
Jail? I think they died.
American Pride Wow! Thanks so much for this update. I wonder on what grounds were they found not guilty of criminal wrongdoing?
Ironically, these fireworks would have probably done little to no harm if they weren't seized in the first place
I've been binging these videos and most of them are like "well that was obviously stupid", I wouldn't have been particularly bothered by this plan.
"Shock to the System" is the same way
Yeah. "Oh, the system has been down for a while, it's obviously at a steady state, just start the cooling procedure." If a coworker said that I would have been like "Yeah, go for it." and not given it a second thought.
Well then your neighbors thank God you aren't in the explosives disposal business
First thing I have to say is .... illegal Chinese fireworks...? I'm surprised they weren't set off during the ocean voyage packed on a container ship
As for disposal any one of those sticks could have gone off in their hands at anytime as they were manhandling them while hacking away at them with knives if just one was improperly packed at time of manufacturing which given the quantity, the law of percentages was fully engaged.
Everything about their "disposal" was dangerous. Whoever heard of soaking fireworks in diesel fuel
the one variable that gets me is that it rained. if it had not, they wouldn't have set up shop inside. sure, something was bound to go off, but it may not have been this deadly.
This happened because the government got involved and otherwise honest people weren't allowed to just have their fun and dispose of the fireworks the right way, by using them for their intended purpose of entertainment. Fireworks are designed to be fired off, not disassembled! No point in making fireworks illegal or confiscating festive accessories.
True, dissasembly is a very dangerous proccess, as seen here.
My buddy works in military ordnance disposal and they also destroy illegal fireworks for the government. Here, the disassembly of fireworks is considered unsafe per se and therefore never done. The standart procedure is the same as for ammunition and ordnance unsafe to defuse, disassemble or move by vehicle, bury it and blow it up under controlled conditions.
If I made a firework disposal plan I would use water. Not only would soaking everything with water prevent fire. The water also leaches the potassium nitrate out of the black powder rendering it much safer. Many of the individual components, if processed properly, could be disposed of in a landfill. I feel that by treating fireworks like high explosives people ignore other options available.
Water was the first thing that came to my mind too. Ironically it would have saved those men's lives if they had just set off all the fireworks one crazy night lol
Props for the most accurate company motto ever.
"Deadly contract" sounds like a perfect title for a GTA mission 😂😂
I’m sorry but DEI’s motto is utterly ridiculous 2:11
Just light them up at nights to treat tourists for a nice show.
I worked with black powder before, so even a slow move can ignite it and static exposure. So the workers exposed themselves to a deathzone with the garbage bags, just being summer, the metal transporteer.
"...but fireworks are explosives that require great care in handling and storage." Imagine that.
Hmm wonder why they don't detonate them in a specially designed container like the bomb squads do (of course would need to change the scale or have a lot of them), but to me detonating them and then incinerating anything left over in a vessel designed to release pressure/deal with heat seems the only logical solution.
I'm pretty sure if a bomb squads containment chamber can handle pipe bombs it can handle a few boxes of fireworks at a time.
Dominique Hebert thats not a requirmenr
Exactly what I was thinking. Big steel box with some type of controlled ignition source.
The trouble with that is:
how can you ensure that all the different explosive parts inside that chamber explodes ? Things that create 3 stars of different color that is 3 different small bombs with metallic powder and blackpowder inside each.
Apparently they just now did this in LA. And the chamber failed and made a big mess. should've done less at a time
I have worked in this field. There are Many rules and standard practices. These people were way out of compliance. It doesn’t matter if they were trying to be economical to maximize profits or didn’t know what they were doing, the result is the same. The loss of life was unnecessary and the young guys who died probably never received proper training. In my experience it takes a three day class just enter such a storage area, pick up a box and leave. Two weeks, butt in the seat classroom time with tests you must pass in order to do any work in there at all. There is certification based on that training and it requires refresher courses to stay current. It is no joke and will make you very respectful of your situation. You will see examples that aren’t computer simulations as seen in this video. Experience can make you dismissive if you let it, I suspect the older fella who died inside the bunker was the only one there with training and experience.
supervisors seem to be the only one who survives in alot of these videos
anyone whose ever used things that go boom, knows you don't hem it up unless you want maximum damage.
i mean, a cave? really?
you build lightly constructed wood sheds, small ones at the greatest distance from each other as possible. if one pops, it doesn't light the others off.
I'm on team just soak em in water. And if the cardboard is waterproof then add a cosolvent that is able to dissolve the waterproof coating. No explosions needed!
I think the problem with this method is that your still stuck with a lot of hazardous materials to dispose of afterwards.
Being wet the material is somewhat safe, but after drying out i would think it would still be a fire, explosion hazard.
What happens when they dry out? I say take them to the beach when the wind is going away from shore, aim at the water, and light the fuse. One box at a time.
The ingredients of black powder, charcoal, potassium nitrate, and sulfur, are all fertilizer components and are safe for the environment. After thoroughly soaking and mashing/mixing them up, they should be able to be sent to the landfill and they will never dry out enough to ignite once underground. The only sticking point is the orange labels that indicate that they were once explosive.
Also, shame on the woman that blamed them for not performing a fresh set of paperwork, as if that would have prevented catastrophe. The approved plan was already proving disastrous, and the later actions taken still fell within the original plan. It's blame-shifting like this that perpetuates these massive cock-ups.
@Zeksteve I agree. I was going to add "mix with mud or clay", but my comment was already getting long. Renting a wet ball mill would have taken so much less effort and would have been so much safer.
Simple disposal checklist:
1. Go to desert
2. Daisy-chain fireworks with fuse
3. Light fuse
4. Post video online
2:11 to be fair ... i love that tag line " initial success or total failure" lmao
I would like to know if the other government agencies ever follow through with the safety recommendations of the CSB after they make them.
Some do and some don't. The ones that don't undercut their competitors with lower prices. Regulations and laws benefit industry because they all have to play by the same rules. In the old days the companies that polluted the most had the lowest production costs. The other benefit to all of us is that their competitors will report them for environmental violations because it is unfair competition.
its incredible how out of control this got
"Initial Success Or Total Failure"
Finally, a company slogan that's accurate.
Damn, I never even thought about the plastic trash bags. But that's why I don't have a disposal business, I know I'm not qualified--unlike this company.
I love how the video start all happy and fun but 5 seconds later turns dark and ominous.
Illegal fireworks... Illegal kitchen tables....illegal cantaloupe.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation wants to know your location.
It's a good thing the government seized these fireworks before anybody got hurt.
Amber Maynard Yes - note they were professional scale items labelled as consumer items, probably with incorrect instructions and safety distances etc. Probably have people setting them of 25 feet away when the real safe distance is 25 yards.
The disposal companies slogan was "initial success or total failure"
LMFAO
Absolutely insane. And then they went into a tunnel that looks like a giant cannon barrel. RIP. I'd imagine they should just set them off how they're meant to be, in a controlled environment, with a safety control room. They could be set off with the push of a button from the safe room. Frankly find it hard to believe that the US military doesn't have some sort of knowledge they could share about safe ways to dispose of black powder explosives.
This problem was caused by bureaucratic overreach. Let people buy and sell the fireworks they want, and there will be no warehouses full of confiscated fireworks waiting years to be disposed of.
Much like drug prohibition is the actual source of "drug problems."
"Initial Success or Total Failure" Well, I guess we know which one it was that time.
I would LOVE to see the log of the phone call the supervisor "made".
Incredible incompetence all around. Soaking fireworks in diesel fuel is supposed to make them safer for disposal? Uhh, no. A very safe, easy way to dispose of them would be to soak them for a few weeks in a large water tank, and have the pregnant water solution evaporated, and sell the evaporite content to fertilizer companies (the oxidizer in fireworks are primarily potassium and sodium nitrate, with a touch of other stuff like barium nitrate, etc.). The leftover fuels and cardboard (which are not water soluble) would then be safe to dispose of in a regular incinerator. Instead the Feds and a large Federal contractor decided to pass the buck to a local doofus who thinks a rusty old 55 gallon drum qualifies as a "thermal flash unit" lol. Can't the government do a damned thing right?
tetrabromobisphenol
.... or giving them to a bomb dispoal team to be taken to a demolition range and blown up en masse as done with unexploded ordinances...
And 'doofus' was the appropriate term I was looking for
Not in a blue state
Tom Ives - The fireworks were seized by Federal law enforcement, who contracted with private enterprise for disposal. Private enterprise fucks up due to inadequate self-regulation and you're blaming the local government for what exactly?
Or, or, hear me out, Light the fuse and get away. For fucks sake we have remote ignition systems! Use the damn fireworks like they where built to be used, ONE TIME!
tetrabromobisphenol No. No they can't.....
"No good way to dispose of illegal fireworks"
Well i'm no explosives expert, but how about setting them all off on independance day every year? I'd think that'd be quite effective at getting rid of them.
ill always think back to the time when i was sitting infront of a bon fire with my family and a bunch of our family friends when one of our drunk uncles decided to throw a roll of blackcats wrapped around a bottle rocket into a fire to "see what would happen"
final destination happened .
we watched as the black cats started popping then the bottle rocket launched up with the black cats popping around it and it caused the rocket to fly between myself and my cousin . and i remember both of us following it with our eyes at it landed about 20 ft behind us in the back of our uncles truck that had the fire works sitting in it.
my cousin and i looked back at eachother and around the same time her face made the "oh shit" look was when my father and uncles all ran to the truck grabbed as many boxes as they could and started tossing them 10' 20 ft away from the truck.
as my dad was on the back of the truck throwing boxes full of different fire works to my uncle while the roman cancles still burning in a box that we all see is now on fire.
my father screamed run and before he finnished the word it went from dead silent to 4th of july over the white house as fire works started launching in all directions. one of the huge cannon ones that launch into the air exploded on the truck next to my dad who barely jumped out of the back and destroyed the packaging it was in raining dozens of them fire balls around the property where they started exploding.
i had a roll of black cats get flung about 50 ft over the house while on fire and popping and land 5 ft behind me and my brother who basically turned around and got lit tf up by black cats unable to run.
my cousin also got nailed by one of the exploding fire balls . but it wasnt lit and never exploded thankgod .
next morning we had over 200 burn spots around the property. whole chunks of grass had to be turned over back of the truck had the plastic lining melted and one of the tired got popped or burned . my cousin had a concussion. my brother and i were littered with hundreds of tiny little burn marks from the hot powerder and blackcats hitting us.
my uncle got lit on fire and had to get a skin graph on his ass cause he had one of the fire balls land at his feet and explode as he was running away.
all in all nobody died but over 20 people had some form of mental damage from it.
and i was only 9 so looking back on it always seemed kinda fun and epic but now that im older and know how deadly one fire work can be . i just picture if we hadnt started unloading fire works the second we seen the candle land in the truck . that entire truck would prob been blown apart considering it had about 3 grand worth of fire works in the back of it.
also we burned an entire tree down. . couldnt stop the fire so we flooded the yard so it wouldnt spread. . . fucked up an acre of land out in splendora texas was a fun time. .
Wow! This case was very illuminating. It seems like a lot of information came to light during this investigation.
why they didn't simply light fireworks to the sky like designed to used?
Facts they shouldn’t steal fireworks
The biggest question here is: Why doesnt the ATF have any guidelines on fireworks disposal? Fireworks are an explosive, so I thought they would have a procedure for safe disposal.
I love these videos and it does underscore the need to have govt. regulations put on companies. But I always get nervous because we have also seen what over-regulating businesses can do as well.
Disassembling fireworks in the rain seems fairly safe. IDK.
Holy geez, DEI was incompetent
I think that these videos appeal to me because they're basically the gritty reboot of How It's Made.
Why do the supervisors always survive
He stepped outside for a smoke
When do supervisors ever do the work.
Manager = Man ager.
@@randycox8294
The irony
They don't, there are plenty of workplace accidents where the supervisor is first or second to die. in the PEPCON blast, the two deaths were the plant's controller and the plant manager (office jobs). There was a factory making resin countertops that had an explosion when I was working in an aerosol plant down the road, only injuries were one worker who had 3rd degree burns to most of his body and the supervisor who went to save him (according to one of the supervisors in the aerosol plant, her husband was working at the resin factory as a shipper).
Drown the fireworks in water for a _week_ then disassemble them while wet, with bronze tools. The pieces go into cardboard boxes _without_ any plastic bags, then those boxes are burned. The water becomes saturated with nitrates, but can just be used over and over, with much of the nitrates ending up in the paper components.
"Initial success or total failure" Sense of humor, I see.
Year's back the US government had a black powder plant, operated by various contractors, like the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant in Charlestown Indiana. It was built in the early 1940's, and I think it ran into the Vietnam war. It was a massive plant, that covered many thousands of acres of land. In recent year's, the government finally demolished most of the buildings, and turned the land over to local government for private use. Including a big Amazon warehouse.
Common sense is a lost art form. Simple flint with one spark is all the exposed black power needed.
You wanna get rid of these fireworks? Just hand em out to pyros with an FEL who would gladly use them for fun in July 4th celebrations. Or just ship them out to an island, dig a pit, toss the boxes in, pour in some gasoline and a remote trigger, jump on the boat and sail away while enjoying the show. I don't understand disassembling as a strategy.