Deadly secret hidden in firewood

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Deadly secret hidden in firewood - The Local

Published: 02 Dec 2014 10:02 GMT+01:00

A 22-year-old woman from Gmunden in Upper Austria narrowly escaped with her life after a fragmentation grenade exploded inside her wood burner on Sunday.

The woman lit a fire around 1pm on Sunday afternoon, and fed it with firewood she had bought from a local hardware store -- the same place where she had bought the wood burner two months previously.

Unbeknownst to her, the wood contained a World War II vintage fragmentation grenade.

According to police spokeswoman Petra Datscher, the shell had most likely lodged in a tree during fighting more than 70 years ago, and the tree had then grown around the explosive, protecting it from the elements.

When the wood from the tree was harvested, the shell was still lodged hidden inside a log, which had been cut for firewood.

The fire caused the shell to explode violently, but fortunately the wood burner was strongly-built, and contained the force of the blast.

The glass door to the wood burner however was completely shattered.

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Fragmentation grenades similar to the one found in the firewood. Photo: Welcome to fieldgear

The woman called the police, who brought in a specialist bomb disposal team.

The team was able to confirm that the 8cm long by 2cm wide shell was a war relic, and determined that all the explosive was now burned away by the fire.

Fortunately, no one was injured, and damage was limited to the wood burner.

World War II munitions turn up on a regular basis in Austria. In August, a pensioner hunting for mushrooms found a live grenade in the woods near Molln in Upper Austria, while in May, a teenager found another grenade washed up on the shores of a lake near Salzburg.
 

LOL I sometimes wonder how many Blasting caps went off in our Coal Stove
when we used to burn Coal.
it wasn't often but occasionally I would hear an Explosion inside the stove
that was a bit louder then the cracks pockets of coal gas in the coal would create.

to put it mildly,


:laughing7: I bet she Crapped a Brick :laughing7:
 

I'm a really good mathmatician, and I cannot even grasp the numbers involved calculating the odds of something like that happening..thanks for the future headaches :laughing7:

I couldn't imagine the bang that would have made, must have been an american made stove, and not one of those cheap Chinese vogelzang stoves. Don't ever waste your money on one, bought one once trying to save money, cost me more in the long run as we used it one season and the cheap mild steel warped so badly is was no longer usable.

Mike
 

I'm a really good mathmatician, and I cannot even grasp the numbers involved calculating the odds of something like that happening..thanks for the future headaches :laughing7:

I couldn't imagine the bang that would have made, must have been an american made stove, and not one of those cheap Chinese vogelzang stoves. Don't ever waste your money on one, bought one once trying to save money, cost me more in the long run as we used it one season and the cheap mild steel warped so badly is was no longer usable.

Mike
Probably not many American made stoves in Upper Austria.

I have some fire wood (right now) that leaves behind purple and lavender ash. What causes that?
 

Well, I heated and cooked with a Columbia cook stove using wood and coal for many years with no problems.
I built the 2 steel barrel heater using the Vogelzang door and bracket kit and used it for several years until my house burned down.
NO, it wasn't the wood heater that caused the fire, it was a Intertherm 9' electric baseboard heater that caused it as per the fire inspector.
I am now installing a small Marine Corp. tent heater that will burn wood. The install is almost finished. Frankfive star.png
 

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