Explosion Wrecks Fireworks Warehouse in Missouri

Authorities in Missouri reported that on Memorial Day, a warehouse housing an undetermined amount of pyrotechnics caught fire.

On Monday, about 45 firemen battled a blaze in The Spirit of 76’s warehouse in Boonville, Missouri.

At 1620 Mid-America Industrial Dr., an industrial park, a fire broke out at around 1 p.m.

No injuries were reported among the employees who evacuated the premises.

According to William Johnson, the Boonville Fire Department’s safety officer and public information officer, the fire was contained inside the building by use of internal firewalls.

Around 7:40, firefighters planned to pour foam on the fire to extinguish it.

Firefighters from the Cooper County Fire Protection District verified their efforts to extinguish the fire in a Facebook post.

According to VP of Operations John Walker, the building was evacuated without incident, and no one was injured.

Some fireworks ignited and were audible to onlookers.

According to Walker, the fire only spread to a single section of the structure.

The cause of the fire remained unknown. According to Walker, twenty people were working in the building when the sprinkler system went off. There were no reports of injuries.

As of 6:20 p.m., the fire was still going strong, and the unsafe circumstances prevented firefighters from entering the structure, according to Lt. William Johnson of the Cooper County Fire Protection District. Johnson indicated that determining the cause of the fire will likely take many days.

Laurie Little works at the Holiday Inn near the fireworks warehouse.

Little recalled hearing the sound of an ” explosion” and seeing what seemed to be a “pop, pop, pop” in the sky as she peered out the window. Scary at first, she eventually realized that it was the fireworks storage facility.

She thought that if something exploded in that building, it had the capacity just to keep exploding, and the Holiday Inn was not too far away.

On November 26, 1983, the renowned Grucci fireworks business in Bellport, NY, had an accident that resulted in a sequence of explosions that caused two deaths and twenty-four injuries.