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Shed fire courtesy nbclosangeles.comWhich came first, the chicken or the egg? There was a fire in a backyard shed in Burbank, California, and during that fire, some ammunition burned/exploded/discharged. That’s undisputed. However, depending on which story you read, the ammunition either caused the fire, or simply burned up during the fire. NBC Los Angeles says that “ammunition that was stored inside [the shed] discharged and sparked a fire, officials said.” However . . .

the Burbank Leader has a quote from Captain Peter Hendrickson of the Burbank Fire Department, saying “The ammunition was set off due to the heat of the fire.” The difference is, of course, only the FUD that is caused by the way the NBC story is written. In any case, the structure was a loss, but no injuries were reported and the fire didn’t hurt any of the surrounding houses.

Your Lockdown of the Dayâ„¢ comes to you from Apache Junction, Arizona. Normally I’d say “outside of” or “a suburb of” a more well-known city to help those unfamiliar, but in this case I’m not sure which city to pick. I had no idea that Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Gilbert, and Glendale, Arizona were all part of the same major metro, and within a 20-mile circle. Anyway, Apache Junction is on the east side of that metro. Two schools were locked down Wednesday during Cactus Canyon Junior High’s 8th-grade promotion ceremony after police received a report of a man carrying a weapon. The other school locked down was Apache Junction High School, where the ceremony was taking place. The lockdown lasted about forty minutes at both schools, during which police located the man in question, and found no signs (yet again) of any weapons. As is becoming par for the course in these things, the district’s statement ends with the comment that “At no time were any students or staff members in danger.” [h/t BC]

The Elko (NV) Free Press demonstrates what is so rarely seen in journalism these days, an article that serves the public and is informative, even if it’s not the kind of thing that bleeds and snags eyeballs. It’s a short reminder on the differences between .223 Remington and 5.56mm NATO, and why it’s OK to shoot .223 in 5.56 chambers but not the reverse. While reading it, I couldn’t help but think that the chances of seeing something like this in The Orlando Slantinel ranged from zero to “are you kidding me?”

The Ohio state legislature is considering a bill that would legalize suppressors for hunters. Local12.com says that even without the passage of the bill, they’ve become a fast-selling, hot-ticket item. One of the sponsors of the bill, John Becker, admits that he’s not a hunter or a “gun guy,” but thinks that the difference that suppressors can make when it comes to hearing loss justifies the bill. Local12 went to the local range to test out a Gemtech .22LR suppressor, and were pleasantly surprised at how much of a difference it made. This is how we’re going to win this battle, folks, by making it about health & safety. The one quibble I have with their article is that they matter-of-factly describe the process of dealing with the ATF, and how it will take “close to nine months” to get federal approval, without mentioning the wrongness of that timeframe.

The Yankee Marshal presents his Z.U.E.S. (Zombie Urban Evasion System). He describes it as a tactical device designed to attach comfortably and securely to the lower extremities of survivalists and maximize their speed and mobility in urban environments while fleeing Zombie hordes.

Whaddaya think? I’ll take two.

MattV2099 finally broke his GLOCK-brand GLOCK 17. He’s taking this opportunity while he’s replacing the parts to relube it to factory specs, and get it back in full working order. [Language]

See? Good as new.

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44 COMMENTS

  2. ” Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Gilbert, and Glendale, Arizona were all part of the same major metro,”

    Actually, the logical extension of this metro area extends to Tempe, 50-60 miles away. People of the west don’t think of distances in the way way we in the east do. Taos-Santa Fe-Albuquerque is a 270-miles round trip, and people don’t think much of driving that distance, which, if I’m not mistaken, is roughly the distance between DC and NYC. One way.

    • Another interesting thing is to take “common” U.S. distances and translate them to Europe. Most people don’t realize how compact Western Europe is. The distance my parents and I routinely drove from my childhood home in south Florida to my relatives in Kentucky would get you from London to within 50 miles of Warsaw, Poland. In that distance you would drive right past all of France, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. Perspective is a funny thing.

    • If you want to get technical: Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Chandler, Guadalupe, Ahwatukee, Queen Creek, Apache Junction, Glendale, Avondale, Peoria, Sun City, Paradise Valley and Surprise are all considered part of the greater Phoenix metro area. Some people also include Anthem and Casa Grande.

  4. Please correct the name of the state in your article on school lockdown. It should be Arizona, not Colorado. As you wrote, Apache Junction is a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona

  5. Today I learned. Colorado is a suburb of Phoenix.

    This apache junction is in ARIZONA not COLORADO.

  6. Dang. Those subtitles in MattV’s videos have me laughing so much, I have to watch them twice.

      • The captions that are automatically generated by YouTube have great potential for hilarity. There are entire channels based around having fun with the captioning.

      • Nope, laughed my ass.

        “The Block is factory lewd.”

        Too funny, I wish I could grow up, but I don’t know how.

  7. So, Did the ammunition cause the fire? of course it did! Just like those ugly black “automatic” baby killer guns can kill people all by themselves, without human intervention.
    And of course if the ammo happened to be some of that hideous looking “Black Talon” stuff, then all the more reason it could start a fire, all by itself!

    Believe it!……………………………………Or maybe not!

  8. Oh, great. We’ve just gone from guns that “just went off” to ammo that spontaneously catches fire.

    Why can’t that happen to politicians?

    • Story did not say the ammo caught fire, it said it “discharged”. You know that means “went off”, right? Without a gun! So does the gun “go off” all the time, or is it that naughty AMMO? Inquiring minds want to know.

  9. Apache Junction is awesome. I head out there now and then to escape the Maine winters. You know, they had a UFO crash out there many years ago. It’s on the Internet so you know it’s true.

  11. I know that ammunition can in fact spontaneously detonate under high temperatures. However I don’t believe that it can ignite anything else when it detonates. Anything ignitable by detonating ammunition would have already been ignited by the temperatures that ignited the ammunition.

    What we have here is a fire that burned up some ammo. It was never a threat to anyone and almost certainly not the cause of the fire.

    Interesting anecdote: Just to day I received some rounds to test that came out of a house fire; a 5 shot box of 12 gauge slugs. The box is blacken by fire and some of the rounds show signs of their hulls deforming. All show water damage, presumably from being hosed by the fire dept. I’ll let TTAG know how they work, but I can say that in a situation that would suggest detonation these didn’t.

    As is well known, detonating small arms ammunition in a fire presents far less risk than the fire itself.

      • Primers detonate, which is what sets the rest in motion. In the context of a fire I believe ‘detonates’ fits the bill (cooked until undergoing chemical decomposition). Properly fired in a weapon I’d say you’re right. Ina fire I stand by my description.

  12. Nine months is the wrong timeframe? For paper filing that is just about right. It’s come down a bit lately, and was higher than that not too long ago. An average of nine months sounds about right to me…

    • I didn’t mean wrong as in “incorrect,” I meant wrong as in “the fact that it takes nine months is friggin’ wrong.” Sorry for the confusion.

    • The fact that any papework needs to be filed at all is wrong. Americans are asking the State for permission to own a metal cylinder. Land of the free.

  14. Spent over 30 years as an EMT and ER nurse. Never once did the news report what I’d seen with my own eyes. Using dramatic terminology to report the news is one thing, changing what actually occurred is another. Too bad it’s so common.

    • I love US50, “The lonliest road in America”, first drove it on a motorcycle in 1980.

  17. How would it even be possible for undisturbed ammunition to discharge and start a fire?

    I remember years ago, when I was new to serious firearms ownership, I thought it was possible for ammunition to spontaneoulsy combust and thereby discharge. It seemed plausible, enough to err on the side of caution, anyway. After all, oily rags in a balled up pile can cause a fire. The requisite heat comes from the drying process of the oils, which is by oxidation, not through evaporation of a solvent (typically water) as with paint drying. Warnings on just about every aerosol can advise against storage in temperature exceeding maybe 120 or 130 degrees, or risk explosion.

    So it could have been real with ammunition. Then it occurred to me that ammunition is loaded in guns in armored vehicles and tanks all over the Middle East, where temperatures inside could easily be that hot or more. So it stopped making sense and I haven’t thought about it since.

  18. Damn that sneaky ammunition, anyway. Doesn’t even require human intervention to set it off.

    ‘Course, considering how hot it can get in a shed in southern California…

    BTW, the egg came first. Irrespective of whatever mutation caused the first distinguishable chicken to arise, it didn’t happen after the bird was hatched; genetic changes might occur at any time, but they’d have either to be germlined or to occur very early in embryo formation for there to be full expression.

    Therefor, the first chicken hatched from a egg that was going to produce a chicken, irrespective of what slightly different critter laid the egg.

    Q.E.D.

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