Huge Explosion in West, Texas (Please Help!)

My understanding is (and there's no research in this, just what I remember from living on the farm) that ammonium nitrate is essentially only volatile in liquid form. When you throw water on it you get a discharge of dangerous gas and a huge kaboom. My concern is whether the volunteer firemen were given the proper training to deal with the incident in Texas. Without proper education, disaster can happen. I feel for them and I believe lessons can be learned here.

Agreed. I would have faith in fire officials to not want to run into any situation unprepared :)
+They should get the big thanks here(os).

But what I am reiterating is that adding water to fertilizer and/with a high ammonium nitrate concentration is not enough, not to mention temperature variations.

There are many things needed to make the combination explosive, THAT explosive doesn't just happen naturally:
Asin: Not a volcano.

There is something suspicious in this bang

"Ammonium nitrate is used in survival kits mixed with zinc dust and ammonium chloride because it will ignite on contact with water."

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/ammonium_nitrate

I dunno nada about bombs, but my chemistry grades were awesome. There are too many missing ingredients for a reaction of that magnitude.
 
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Agreed. I would have faith in Fire officials to not want to run into any situation unprepared :)
+They should get the big thanks here(os).

But what I am reiterating is that adding water to fertilizer and/with a high ammonium nitrate concentration is not enough, not to me tion temperature variations.

There are many things needed tonmake the combination explosive, THAT explosive doesn't just happen naturally:
Asin: Not a volcano.
==There is something suspicious in this bang

"Ammonium nitrate is used in survival kits mixed with*zinc*dust and ammonium chloride because it will ignite on contact with water."

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/ammonium_nitrate

I dunno nada about bombs, but my chemistry grades were awesome. There are too many missing ingredients for a reaction of that magnitude.

I'm not jumping to conclusions here. There's nothing cut and dry about this one, so I'll wait for the investigation. We're all pretty raw after Boston. It's easy to get caught up in it.
 
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I'm not jumping to conclusions here. There's nothing cut and dry about this one, so I'll wait for the investigation. We're all pretty raw after Boston. It's easy to get caught up in it.

me neither :(
 
The problem at a fertilizer plant s the same one they have at grain silos. Grain doesn't explode but the dust does. Ultra fine dust is highly explosive if mixed with enough oxygen. The slightest spark can set it off.

That is what happened in Texas City, back in the late 40's.
 
Um...

The problem at a fertilizer plant s the same one they have at grain silos. Grain doesn't explode but the dust does. Ultra fine dust is highly explosive if mixed with enough oxygen. The slightest spark can set it off.

That is what happened in Texas City, back in the late 40's.

No mention of that ...

http://www.local1259iaff.org/disaster.html

In fact, from what I deciphered, all things point to ammunition there as well.

But no ammo on the ship?
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fertilizer-explosion-kills-581-in-texas?
 
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