| A large smoke cloud arises from the detonation of the black powder. |
A cement building containing black powder was ignited on Wednesday by the bomb squad from Utah County. The building was located on some land south of the Huntington Airport along the Cleveland canal. It was discovered by workers from the water conservancy district. They did not know what was inside the building and removed the metal door with a cutting torch. The Emery County Sheriff’s Office said the workers were extremely fortunate that the black powder didn’t ignite from a spark.
The small building contained 18-one pound canisters of black powder, a one gallon bottle of smokeless black powder and a burlap bag with an unknown substance in it. The bomb squad speculated that from the force of the explosion the burlap bag possibly contained dynamite.
| Eighteen rusted cans of black powder blow up in the blast. |
The bomb squad evaluated the black powder and determined that the safest plan of action was to detonate the powder on site. The powder and building were blown up with two controlled charges. The property owner will clean-up the debris left from the explosion.
Debris was blown into the air approximately 40 feet from the blast. It was unknown the origin of the building or why the black powder was left inside or what it had been used for. Someone said they thought the building was constructed in 1947. The building was noticed again in the 70s, but no action was taken at that time. Another speculation was that it was someone’s private supply of black powder. Emery County Sheriff Lamar Guymon said, “Regardless of the use and origin of the building and the black powder, the sheriff’s office has taken care of the problem which posed a potential threat to the land owner or visitors to the property. We are extremely thankful that there weren’t any injuries to those who took the door off the building. It is always best in these situations to call the sheriff’s office and let us investigate these incidents. Don’t take it upon yourself to handle these potentially dangerous situations.”