One Dead After Washington Fireworks Explosion

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TENINO, Wash. (AP) -- A deadly blast at a fireworks plant in Washington state came as workers were preparing shells for shipping, an Entertainment Fireworks official says.

The company produces professional fireworks shows around the region, Ken Julian, company operations vice president, said in a statement.

After the explosion Wednesday morning, a 75-year-old man died of his injuries while awaiting an airlift to a regional trauma center.

The blast also injured a 25-year-old man, who was flown to a Seattle hospital with burns and trauma, and a 52-year-old man, who was taken to a nearby hospital, Thurston County sheriff's Lt. Greg Elwin said.

The man who died was a long-time company employee, the sheriff's spokesman said. Thurston County Coroner Gary Warnock said late Wednesday he had not yet released the man's name pending notification of relatives.

Representatives from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the state Department of Labor and Industries are investigating.

The explosion and fire at the plant south of Olympia destroyed a cloth-walled working area and part of a large box truck, Elwin said.

"Right now this appears to be non-criminal and non-intentional — an unfortunate accident related to this type of business," he said.

More people could have been hurt and more buildings damaged if the company hadn't been following regulations that require fireworks transfers to happen away from other buildings and other explosives, Elwin said.

The company is licensed by the state and federal governments, and is "a very reputable fireworks firm," said Brennan Phillips, an ATF explosives officer in Seattle.

"They've been here a long time, and generally have a good safety record," he said.

There are a number of ways the explosion could have been sparked, including static electricity or some type of radio device or a cell phone in the area, Phillips told The Olympian (http://is.gd/4VZvMM ).

"It's explosives -- it's fireworks -- there are some hazards involved," he said.

There have not been any complaints or incidents to trigger a safety inspection at the company during the past nine years, Labor and Industries spokeswoman Elaine Fischer said.

"This is the first incident in decades of a workplace death related to fireworks," she said.

"We are a small company where everyone works together -- it's like a family," Julian said in his statement. "When something like this happens, it is devastating. We have been in business more than 16 years and nothing like this has ever happened as safety is our number one priority and we pride ourselves on our highly qualified staff."

On its website, Entertainment Fireworks says it's the largest fireworks company based in Washington.

Mark Rorvic, 54, who lives across the street, told The Olympian he awoke to the sound of the explosions.

"All of a sudden, all hell broke loose, and it was boom, boom, boom, boom," he said. "Horrific — it's the only way I could say it."

Rorvic said he used to work for the fireworks company.
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[displayfireworks1]

As the investigation continues we should eventually learn what caused this unfortunate accident. My initial thoughts are electric match but I do not know. It looks like there is a magazine and a pavilion. I would speculate the product would be removed from the magazine and prepped in some fashion before it is loaded into the truck.
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One man was killed and two were injured at Entertainment Fireworks Inc. near Maytown at about 9:50 a.m. Wednesday morning in an explosion eyewitnesses described as something out of a warzone.


According to Thurston County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant Greg Elwin, the cause of the explosion is unknown. A 74-year-old man died shortly after the accident occurred. A 25-year-old man was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with lifethreatenng injuries. A third victim sustained minor injuries and was driven to a local hospital in a personal vehicle.


All men suffered burns and concussive injuries as a result of the blast.
The 74-year-old man was originally meant to be lifeflighted away from the scene via a helicopter, but because he died before he could be loaded, the 25-year-old victim was placed instead.


“There’s debris everywhere,” Elwin said.


Retired volunteer firefighter Art Pannkuk was sitting outside his trailer across the street when he saw a plume of green and purple sparks rise above the warehouse followed by about 20 seconds of cacophonic explosions and a plume of grey and black smoke.


He didn’t think anything of it at first, because the company often lights off fireworks.


But this time he knew something was wrong.


One of the first on the scene, he rushed to help extinguish a small structure fire, and saw a man lying on the ground with his clothes burnt off of him and his body covered in burns.


According to neighbor, former employee and one of the first to respond, Mark Rorvik, employees were rigging firework shells with electric fuses in a small outbuilding called the “squib tent” before the blast occurred. Similar to a gazebo, he said, the wall-less building was equipped with four tables in the center and the employees were working on the outside for quick escapes.


“I’m just happy it didn’t explode in the main building,” he said. “With things like that, if one goes they all go.”


The property has a large warehouse, numerous moving trucks and pallets of mortar tubes of various sizes. Several police SUVs, ambulances and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms vehicles were on the premises at Reeder Road and a lifeflight station was set up nearby on state Route 121 shortly after the blast.


Elwin said early indications are that there was no crime committed, so it’s likely his office will have a limited role in the investigation. Further research will be conducted by the ATF and the Washington Department of Labor and Industries.


Entertainment Fireworks manufactures and packages fireworks for shows and events around the state. According to the company’s website, it was established in 1997. The company’s inventory range includes aerial shells from 2 inches to 16 inches and a wide variety of, “quality professional pyrotechnic material.”

[displayfireworks1]

As long as fireworks companies insist on placing electric match in 1.3 fireworks prior to transporting products I am surprised we do not see more of these accidents. I personally am totally against it, I believe all electric match should be placed in product at the shoot site.
In February of 2014 I posted a video on my YouTube channel trying to solicit comment from pyro-technicians around the world on how electric match is used. Here is that video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FPMZQlaooc
Here are some of the comments on that video.
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Dave, I sometimes work for a company in The Netherlands. The shells and boxes are shipped without igniters connected. We connect them on site
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both companys i work for we just hook them up on site more work but i think much more safer to go that way you never know something bad can happening if they are prematch ready to go in the box like your on you way to a show got everything in the truck but well driving there you could come up on bad road with pot holes and the boxes start to bounce you could cause it to fire then the whole truck is blowing up
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In New Zealand you are able to transport them with electric matches attached if they are preloaded in mortars and capped off, and labelled as a complete product on the dangerous goods form.
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In Denmark it is absolutely illegal to make ANY changes to the products before transport. Even if you just tape two fuses together, it is considered a new article that has to be government approved. We load and prepare everything on site.
We actually very rarely use e-match, it is much easier to just handfire it, depending on the size of the show of course.
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I've done displays where they come prematched...and matching on site. I guess it just varys from company to company on how they run things and make it more efficient to set up displays.
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who i work for they usually pre-wire the mortar racks/modules so when you get to the site all you have to do is sort through the product and allocate to the appropriate tube
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Hello Dave. I worked for American Thunder here in the N. East and we do a lot of shows in Mass that require electric firing. All the shows we did in 2013 the e-match was attached back at the companies facility prior to the show than shipped out to the techs on site. We of course have a few e-matched to rig on site (i.e. - putting back hits in flights and of course the finale). Hope this helps
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Hi Dave,
Here in holland it is strictly forbidden to connect the electric match with the shells and then transported in the car. It should be done at the shooting position.
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I work for a pyrotechnics company in Australia as part of their Melbourne crew.
We never transport product with an igniter plugged in.
As well as being Illegal to do so the risk isn't worth it.
In my opinion the man hours involved in matching product have to be costed into a display anyway so why not just go with the safer option and do it on-site?
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Hi Dave!

I work for a firework company here in Sweden and we are in 70% of the times not transporting firework with ematch connected. But if we are transporting with ematch

[CafreakinBOOM]

I dont know "WHY DOES THIS NOT GET RESEARCH" The Fireworks Industry makes Enough Money for this to happen again.

Is a Pyrotechnitian or a warehouse worker less expensive to replace, than what it cost to get a lab team and research this?

HUMMMM? "ELECTRIC MATCH= RUSSIAN ROULETTE" ????????????????HUMMMM? CafreakinBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

[Grumps]

Granted electric match is a possible cause of this incident, per Gregg Smith (Safety Program Manager at the APA) mentioned in a course he was giving that rising effects that have lost their protective covers can be ignited if they are forcefully rubbed together like if a shell was dropped or thrown into a box with other shells that have lost their covers. Sort of like the old strike anywhere kitchen matches.

[displayfireworks1]

Apparently the ATF does not have a problem with attaching igniters to 1.3 product other than a storage issue.
Here is copy and paste.

Prior to delivering and conducting a display fireworks show, employees attach igniters to the display fireworks at the fireworks plant. Is this considered processing?







Answer
Yes. The attachment of igniters to the display fireworks at the fireworks plant constitutes an assembly process and is considered “processing.” Any building in which igniters are attached to display fireworks is considered a “fireworks process building,” which is defined, in part, in 27 CFR § 555.11 as “…any building in which pyrotechnic compositions or explosive materials is pressed or otherwise prepared for finished and assembly…” Be advised that the display shells and igniters cannot be stored in a process building overnight and must be moved to an explosives magazine which complies with the requirements in 27 CFR § 555, Subpart K.

[displayfireworks1]

TENINO, Wash. (AP) -- The Washington state Department of Labor & Industries has fined a fireworks plant $1,200 for safety violations after investigating a fatal explosion in June.

Entertainment Fireworks in Tenino produces professional fireworks shows around the region. A 75-year-old man died after the explosion and two others were injured as workers were preparing shells for shipping.

The official Labor & Industries citation issued Dec. 11 and released Monday says company employees were not following all the safety requirements for transferring explosive shells, which could have prevented or minimized any injuries from the explosion.

The rules limit the amount of explosive present at any time and go into precise details, such as which direction the employees should be facing while they move the shells, and what they should do in an emergency.

State safety inspectors also said the company wasn't sufficiently training its workers.

The company's vice president of operations, Ken Julian, said it will not appeal the fine. Julian called the Labor & Industries investigation fair and said the company will head its advice.

"This certainly is going to make us step back and do whatever is necessary," Julian said

The fatal explosion was the first major accident in the company's 19-year history, he said.

"All the people involved in that horrible accident had been very experienced with the procedure," Julian said. "The gentleman who lost his life had performed that procedure thousands of times."

The man who died, William Hill, of Olympia, was a long-time employee of Entertainment Fireworks, Julian said
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This is the outcome of yet another electric match accident. I am hoping everyone in the industry seriously looks at all these events and a solution emerges. My research always leads me to best quality electric match is the most sensitive to shock and friction.