At this year's Eastern Carolina Fireman's Association Fire Seminar, instructors for the Clandestine Drug Labs and Explosives class did their share to disturb the peace on Sunday afternoon. They demonstrated a variety of explosive devices, and for the grand finale, blew a giant pumpkin to smithereens.

Students in the class also got a taste of walking through a booby-trap field, as we tried our luck at avoiding trip wires and other nasty surprises in the woods.

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Clandestine Drug Labs & Explosives Class
Instructor Ken makes a hasty retreat after chucking a handful of sodium metal pellets into a puddle.	Sodium metal is extremely water-reactive, and as the protective coating on each tiny pellet wore off, they flamed up.	Chemicals mixed in a little hole in the ground...
... reacted quickly to form this impressive fireball.	Instructor Ken sets up the first demonstration on the explosives range.	Wiring it up!
Slightly blurry as the report from this explosion made me jump as i pressed the shutter. And this device made from... believe it or not... coffee grounds!	Firefighters in the class watch from a safe distance.	A slightly more impressive explosion from ammonimum nitrate fuel oil
Black powder produced fire as well as a kaboom, but I wasn't quite quick enough to catch it.	It was a little harder to miss the fireball in this demonstration of a firebomb.	Instructor Doug sets up for the grand finale, the complete and utter destruction of a giant pumpkin using dynamite. Pie, anyone?
Instructor Ken explains what we are about to see.	Fire in the hole! Doug is ducking because pieces of pumpkin are raining down on him.	Even though we were at least a hundred feet away from the blast, we got pelted with shards of pumpkin remains too.
Waiting for their turn in the booby-trap field.	This was my team to go through the booby-trap field with.	We found all kinds of nasty surprises, like this grenade hanging from a tree, tied to a trip wire.
We all got past this one, also tied to a trip wire. Of course, none of the devices in this field were live.	Our team leader had sharp eyes and spotted this grenade and the attached trip wire.	We were all proud of ourselves for finding this wire (can you see it?) but.... we were in for a surprise...
It was in fact just a distraction, to draw our attention away from this little contraption hidden under some moss.	A pressure-release device, designed to activate when you step on it, and detonate upon release.	By sheer luck, we all managed to step over it, even though none of us realized it was there.
Our team members make it to safety.	The next group starts the trail.
Apparatus On Display
COMING SOON