Explosion at fireworks storage facility in Northern California

Remains of seven victims have been recovered:

I'll be driving through there in two weeks. It's a very small town. This is going to hit them hard.

Apparently one of the people killed was 18 and this was his first day on the job.

The rest of the people seem to have some checkered pasts. They're all out of San Francisco. An ethnic connection to the country that produces so many of these fireworks may indicate some gang affiliation. The illegal firework shows out here last for days and rival the professionals'... We love our illegal fireworks.

Once assembled I don't think fireworks are so easy to accidentally detonate. They aren't shock sensitive and cardboard isn't very conductive of static electricity. It is, however, a windy region and the ethnicity of the operators/victims includes a culture that smokes a lot of cigarettes... We've had a fire in our company caused by a cigarette that started 60+ feet from the smoker.

I'll just ignore tugboat.

Hazardous storage in an older building?
Water supply issue?
No sprinklers because it's an older building and they weren't required then?
Change to hazardous storage without permit/review?

Given the nature of the storage I somehow doubt that deflagration venting would have done anything, I'm more familiar with that being for combustible dust, not hazardous storage. That video toward the end shows some panels off the building, suggesting a prior explosion made it's own deflagration venting / allowed in more combustion air. I'd imagine at some point, even a legal firework storage operation has some measure of black powder leaking out of these packages and accumulating to at least some extent on the floor, unless routinely cleaned, which doesn't sound like a very typical activity for a warehouse. Would a cleaner floor have made a difference? I rather doubt it. The entire point of fireworks is they DON'T self extinguish and they explode. There was a fireworks barge for the fireworks in Duluth, Minnesota that went off early, and that was properly spaced and all. (Maybe it wasn't a barge..... all I can see is reference to a "slip" )

The owner of one of the companies storing fireworks in the building was denied a license to do so for being a convicted violent felon. Apparently he shot at another car in a road rage incident.

He did receive state licenses...

The property was zoned as agricultural.

The building was not a permitted storage space.

The owner of the property was a county sheriff.

As for deflagration venting... Fireworks don't need to be assembled into massively destructive devices that require such measures. The key to safety is use many smaller buildings and not accumulate so much material under one roof.

California state fire marshall is now investigating: