[Onion Man]

Oooh.  Houseboats.

I might have to buy this one, houseboats will get a lot of use out of me...

Always sort of wanted one, not practical in Wisconsin though.

[KarmaInferno]

EDIT:  Just remembered an NPC my group dealt with who was a member of the Irish Republican Army in Exile (IRAiE.).  His warehouse was loaded with explosives of so many varieties that the Lone Star spent months trying to piece out just how many different types of explosives were used, almost all of them homemade.

Usually, law enforcement only takes a few samples for forensics and then engages a low temperature burn to destroy stockpiles of explosives. It's considered too risky to manually try to make safe a house full of amateur boom.


-k

[CanRay]

And what do they do after said house goes boom?

A warehouse in this instance, full of toasters as a data farm.

[KarmaInferno]

It's not an uncontrolled fire, and they do expect some minor explosions which is why they put up barriers as needed to protect surrounding areas.

But burning explosives is probably the safest way to destroy a large amount of them. If you set most explosives on fire, they burn like wood, rather than detonating. Rather than a gigantic boom, you get the pop and crackle of a slow burn.

Burning explosives does create toxic fumes, so the area needs to be evacuated during the process, but they'd be doing that anyhow.

An example from last year.



-k

[CanRay]

Warehouse already went boom.  Nothing left to burn.   

I also know that most explosives can be safely burned, I grew up in a mining town.  Most explosives require an actual explosion to set off, thus the use of blasting caps and detonation charges (Or, my personal favorite, DETCORD!).  But most folks wouldn't know that.

I remember an old trick I learned about from WWII vets that were in Africa was that they shaved explosives to make a fire when wood was scarce in the area they were around, and they were allowed to have a fire in the first place.

[Onion Man]

Warehouse already went boom.  Nothing left to burn.   

I also know that most explosives can be safely burned, I grew up in a mining town.  Most explosives require an actual explosion to set off, thus the use of blasting caps and detonation charges (Or, my personal favorite, DETCORD!).  But most folks wouldn't know that.

I remember an old trick I learned about from WWII vets that were in Africa was that they shaved explosives to make a fire when wood was scarce in the area they were around, and they were allowed to have a fire in the first place.

That reminds me, why can't you make improvised detcord?

I know at least two ways to do it, one fairly safe and another that I wouldn't keep stored in my place (gun cotton isn't terribly stable).