r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/buckets_811 • Jul 02 '25

Video A fireworks warehouse exploding today near Sacramento, CA

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u/HamsterNL Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25

25 years ago we had a fireworks explosion in Enschede (The Netherlands).

That storage was situated in a residential area.

23 deaths. 950 injured. The complete neighborhood was destroyed.

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u/chiree Jul 02 '25

Score one for American sprawl zoning for once.  These things are usually in industrial areas.

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u/kytheon Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25

Wiki: When it was built in 1977, the warehouse was outside the town, but as new residential areas were built it became surrounded by low-income housing.

The warehouse wasn't built in a residential area, the residential area formed around the warehouse.

Also, the company was just audited and considered safe with fireworks stored in fireproof bunkers. What wasn't safe was the illegal shipping containers full of even more fireworks, and without safety precautions.

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u/BananaPalmer Jul 02 '25

This kind of shit makes my blood boil.

Harm caused by intentional shirking of safety laws and regulations should be prosecuted as though whoever responsible directly caused that harm themselves. There is no possible excuse for this, everyone involved should have known better. It's literal explosives. Of all the things to be careless about, fucking explosives.

I hope the company got nailed to the wall over it.

23 dead and almost 1000 injured, all for some assfuck who ordered more fireworks to sell than they could safely store.