I had a close call in my reloading room today.  I have track lighting over my reloading bench with incandescent bulbs in it.  I also have not been very good at cleaning up spilled gunpowder.  I load both smokless and black powder for several rifles and pistols.  I turned on the lights and heard something falling and than there was a sizzling sound and than the room filled with smoke.  I ran over to the bench and stomped out the fire which consisted of buring paper.  I cleaned up the mess and noticed a broken light bulb in the debris.  I looked up and sure enough one of the bulbs was broken.  There was nothing but the screw in base left.  Apparently when I turned on the lights the bulb exploded and showered the reloading bench with hot filiments which ingited the spilled powder and started the fire.  Fortunatly I was able to extingish the fire before any damage was done.  I have replaced the incandescent bulbs with florescent ones and will take better care in cleaning up when I spill powder in the future.





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I posted a similar experience a couple of years ago, it may be in a deleted post so I'll repeat it.

I was asked to do an investigation into an accident an aquaintance had in his garage.  He had a pound of 2F black powder blow up on him, burning him severely.  Firefighters had concluded a fan motor must have sparked and threw a spark 10 feet or more, onto the powder.  I thought that doubtful, as the powder was in a covered container, and electrical motor sparks are minor.  Plus, the fan didn't have any problems that were apparent, after the event.

The conclusion I came to was that it was caused by a halogen light.

He mounted a 400 watt construction light over his bench so he could see well.  He had previously had the 400 watt bulb burn out and explode, cracking and smoking the protective glass over it.  He had replaced the bulb, but not the glass, reasoning that it was smoked and wouldn't work well, and the light was better without it.

The bulb again burned out, and broke, dropping a hot piece of glass onto the plastic butter tub of powder he had on the bench to dip powder out of.  He had covered it with the lid, but it burned through and caught the powder on fire.  He was about 5 feet away, and it still put a couple of square feet of 3rd degree burns on his face, neck, arms, and chest.

Lesson I got from it, is only use fluorescent lights in the reloading area, and make sure they have a diffuser between the bulbs and you to catch hot fragments if the bulbs break.  Absolutely do not use halogen or incandescent.  Halogen should not be used directly anyway, anywhere, because it is damaging to your eyes and skin, and can burn you.   Also, put the minimum amount of powder that you need, and keep it covered at all times possible.

Things like this are preventable, by thinking ahead.  Survey your bench today.  Do you have a hot light?  A grinder?  Any open motors?   

dave

+1 for BP's comment.

We had a major Tanker Explosion and sinking number of years ago. Bow Mariner off the Virginia Eastern Shore.  Blew a 900 foot ship in Half killing most of the crew. She was empty and the crew was cleaning tanks to load the next cargo

CG report gave three possible sources for the ignition. Crew Smoking, Lightning, or most likely when the deck lights were turned on at twilight a broken unshielded bulb igniting the fumes. Explosion took place exactly at legal twilight when the bridge watch would normally turn the lights on.  Ship had been cited before for broken deck lights.

Black is very explosive and beyond keeping ignition sources away the real key to safety is work in small quantities keeping the can closed separate from the working powder. If it goes up best if it's not much.

Boats

You guys need to clean up your spilled powder messes.  I'm too cheap to spill powder. 

                   Joe.     That's 3000 posts!  Whooooooopieeeeeee!!!!!!

Congratulations Joe!

And I second Boats comment.

Lets see now....I've only got 2302 posts to go.      

I had a similar accident a few years ago.  I have since replaced the incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs.  This will be moot in a few years as the FEDs are banning incandescent bulbs next year.  

They fade (LEDs) a LITTLE after about 3 years.  (We measure their performance in optical encoders for the motors we make.)  But unless you were MEASURING the output you'd never notice.