An addendum of sorts to my last point. A friend I forwarded this to took umbridge at blaming the smoke-pot explosion on the supervisor(s). So I looked at it more closely and here's an edited version of the reply:
Actually, if you go to the official document, pg. 13-4, it's not that bad:
Especially since I have high school experience with potassium chlorate, a dangerous oxidizer. E.g. I used classic chlorate and sugar plus nichrome igniter wire plus my second generation rocket launcher device (both versions having a physical key lockout, didn't trust my younger brothers) to do some neat 4th of July fireworks stuff. E.g. add a small "bomb" of chlorate and sugar to the igniter packet taped to the inside of one half of a cinderblock, then arrange a gross of bottle rockets in that, and you can get an amazing display due to the significant variations in their fuzing. Oh, BTW, this was done in the middle of our lakes ^_^. In all this I somehow never managed to burn myself.
Anyway, they mixed up their own witches brew to make the smudge pots, and looking at the ingredients it's no surprise it exploded, and now looking up smoke screen making on Wikipedia, you use either potassium chlorate or if using phosphorous, atmospheric oxygen or much tamer aluminum as oxidizers (the latter for IR proof smoke), not both. Magnesium turnings are right out.
I.e. I had a better knowledge of chemistry and safety in high school than these guys did. Reading between the lines they were clearly doing it this way to have some fun as opposed getting the job done, in an area where you almost certainly want to avoid random fires.
So, yeah, they should have been better supervised, access to these chemicals should have been better controlled (i.e. a good clerk would have raised an eyebrow if they tried to withdraw any single one of these chemicals except of course the sugar, and any of the combinations...), and critically "no disciplinary action could be taken." I agree with every one of the recommendations.
And disciplinary action was almost certainly not needed, those who were held at a degree of fault realized they'd let these "kids" kill or blind themselves.
Actually, if you go to the official document, pg. 13-4, it's not that bad:
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/19...
Especially since I have high school experience with potassium chlorate, a dangerous oxidizer. E.g. I used classic chlorate and sugar plus nichrome igniter wire plus my second generation rocket launcher device (both versions having a physical key lockout, didn't trust my younger brothers) to do some neat 4th of July fireworks stuff. E.g. add a small "bomb" of chlorate and sugar to the igniter packet taped to the inside of one half of a cinderblock, then arrange a gross of bottle rockets in that, and you can get an amazing display due to the significant variations in their fuzing. Oh, BTW, this was done in the middle of our lakes ^_^. In all this I somehow never managed to burn myself.
Anyway, they mixed up their own witches brew to make the smudge pots, and looking at the ingredients it's no surprise it exploded, and now looking up smoke screen making on Wikipedia, you use either potassium chlorate or if using phosphorous, atmospheric oxygen or much tamer aluminum as oxidizers (the latter for IR proof smoke), not both. Magnesium turnings are right out.
I.e. I had a better knowledge of chemistry and safety in high school than these guys did. Reading between the lines they were clearly doing it this way to have some fun as opposed getting the job done, in an area where you almost certainly want to avoid random fires.
So, yeah, they should have been better supervised, access to these chemicals should have been better controlled (i.e. a good clerk would have raised an eyebrow if they tried to withdraw any single one of these chemicals except of course the sugar, and any of the combinations...), and critically "no disciplinary action could be taken." I agree with every one of the recommendations.
And disciplinary action was almost certainly not needed, those who were held at a degree of fault realized they'd let these "kids" kill or blind themselves.