doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ammunition & House Fires

I would still be afraid of being around ammo in a house fire. If you were a fireman, you would wonder if there was any black powder inside. I believe the primers can still come out of the bullets. I threw some blank .22 shells from a blank pistol in a trash fire years ago. One of them exploded and came out of the fire and hit me in my shoulder and cut me. It was strong enough to put out my eye. I understand primers do the same thing. All kinds of weird things happen in a fire. And if you know someone has ammo, you can figure there are loaded guns, too.

The firefighting gear provides plenty of protection. There are many ways to get killed fighting a fire and ammo cooking off is way down on the list.

Where there is ammo there may also be a loaded firearm. A friend of mine, a deputy sheriff, was once called to a residence address where an outbuilding was ablaze in the backyard. It had been used by the resident and friends as a place to play cards. Since it was burning so fiercely, and was away from other buildings sufficiently, the fire department, with the owner's permission, had decided to just contain the location and let it burn out. Everyone was standing off at a distance when they heard a Pop!, and my friend was struck in the upper abdomen. An ambulance was called when they realized he had been shot. The surgeon told him afterwards that everyone is born with two major blood vessels alongside each other, the vena cava and the aortic artery. At the location of the bullet wound the two are all but touching. Surgeon then said that when my friend developed in his mother's womb his were separated by a small distance ........ just enough for a bullet to pass between them and not hit either one. He is alive today because of that anomaly in his physical development.

A loaded pistol was found to have been inside the outbuilding when the fire consumed it, and a round cooked off hitting Jay in the abdomen, some distance away.

I realize that. I was a firefighter. And guns, ammunition, powder, and it's changing composition during a fire, etc. is still something to be aware of. And like you said, black powder is another story. Watch the different videos on youtube. If it's safe in a fire, why do the people run and hide when they throw it in a fire? The one video shows that bullets will penitrate a block of gel sitting next to the fire. It's down on the list of danger, but like you said, it is still on the list. You don't know what is in people's houses now days. Did you ever walk into a building and find a case of unstable dynamite? I did. And if firefighters are in a house and they hear explosions going off, I can't blame them for wanting to leave the house and hitting it with water from the outside. But, thanks for the reply. I really appreciate your opinion.

I just called my fire department and asked about ammunition going off in a fire. He said there are many variables about staying in a house that has ammunition going off. But one thing he did say was that a bullet going off in a fire "COULD DEFINITELY PENETRATE THEIR CLOTHING. 1000%". Unquote. Nuff said. Have a nice day.

Like my local fireman said, "So many variables." And it says, right in Marc Ret's third post that ammunition is safe, "if it IS NOT IN THE CHAMBER OF A FIREARM. 🙄