Firefighter set fire to a suburban San Diego home they said was so packed with homemade explosives that they had no choice but to burn it to the ground.
A house that was intentionally set on fire today had been rented by an out-of-work software consultant who authorities say assembled the largest quantity of bomb-making materials that included the kind of chemicals used by suicide bombers — HMTD and PETN.
Police and firefighters set off their own remotely controlled explosive devices to ignite the home in Escondido. The ignition was delayed because a weather inversion layer present at an earlier scheduled time would have caused more pollution in the area. Meteorologists were consulted to determine the most favorable time to conduct the planned burn.
About 72 homes were evacuated, and a 16-foot fire was covered with fire-retardant gel was placed between the burn home and the next-door homes.
Most of the house was heavily involved in fire in about 30 minutes, and a thick black header raised vertically in a clear blue San Diego sky.
Apparent PETN Explosion Video …
Two meters of detcord around a tree with detonation initiated by an electronic remote firing system.
Detcord is a high-speed fuse which explodes, rather than burns.
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