Fire at range?

[leftiye]

Is this thing about shooters causing grass/range fires when practicing/plinking real? I've gone all of my life and never heard of this, now our local news mo mos say there have been 20 fires started by shooters practicing this spring so far.

I've never even seen a spark from a bullet impact until those hollywood guys started using that special effects ammo. Seems to me lead and copper are inimcal to sparks. Maybe steel core if un jacketed (how long would rthat take to ruin a bore?).

[Powellcole5490]

Prior to my deployment, I went through some training out at Fort Dix, NJ. We were doing some convoy operations and since I was the lowest ranking on the squad guess who was rocking the 240B! The only thing was we were using regular ammo not target ammo. We had the normal 4-to-1 ratio of FMJ to Tracer rounds. I come from the plains of Texas and we were always dealing with fires. So it blew my mind when we started many fires with the tracer rounds in the forest and I was told to let the fires burn themselves out. I couldn't believe it. But I'm guessing that situation varies pretty significantly to what you are refering to. the Forest service here just banned shooting in the national parks except for hunting. Besides shooting tracers, I've never seen a fire caused from shooting a gun.

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

maybe 19 of those 20 were shooting tannerite and the 20th was tracers

[tomme boy]

Just about all of the surplus communist ammo is steel jacketed. I see it spark all the time in the evening. Our range has a fire every couple of years. It usually is from tracers. Even a lot of our 7.62x51 is steel jacketed. It happens.

[firefly1957]

I have seen muzzle loading patches smoldering at shoots and steel cored bullets spark when hitting a rock or glass, also if you shoot though steel plenty of hot sparks fly and I have never seen lead or/and copper bullets start a fire.

[rockrat]

Yep, seen a fire start at our range, because of steel cored ammo hitting a rock. Don't know about a spark, but all that energy has to go somewhere, so I think it heated up the steel core to the point where it caused the fire. Looked for it, but neve found it.

[wv109323]

Another fire that I heard of was at an indoor range. The floor of the indoor range was not cleaned properly. Over time there was an accimulation of unburnt powder that gathered on the floor. There was an ignition source and up in flames went the range. IIRC the range was in Hawaii.
A Pistol with a certain load can leave behind unburnt powder. I believe it was on this forum some one inquired about using unburnt indoor range powder as a powder source.

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

Another fire that I heard of was at an indoor range. The floor of the indoor range was not cleaned properly. Over time there was an accimulation of unburnt powder that gathered on the floor. There was an ignition source and up in flames went the range. IIRC the range was in Hawaii.
A Pistol with a certain load can leave behind unburnt powder. I believe it was on this forum some one inquired about using unburnt indoor range powder as a powder source.

that i have heard about , there was an indoor range in one of the norther suburbs of Chicago had that happen in the 70's , it had been a roller skating rink first and it had a wood floor

[Muddy Creek Sam]

I have started a grass fire with my 12 Black Powder Shells, Did this during a local SASS match.

Sam :D

[UT Phoneguy]

I heard that on the news this morning- there is ash falling all over here today from the fire by Utah Lake. I wondered if people were shooting tracers, black powder or what- one report a week or so back said people were shooting "exploding targets". One of the fires north of Salt Lake was said to be started by people shooting clay pigeons. It is shaping up to be a hot dry summer...

[ShooterAZ]

It's very real. Even some late 60's Lake City manufactured 30 M2 Ball (30-06) produced in the good ol' USA is mild steel jacketed. It does and will produce a spark. AP ammo will do the same. Shooting tracers in my neck of the woods would result in a catastrophe right now. Be careful out there guys!

[missionary5155]

Greetings
Our local range ( Danville Rifle Pistol Club ) banned tracers due to fires which is fine during the dry months going on.
While at tank ranges in Ft. Hood we started fires with ball ammo fired from caliber .30 machine guns with no tracers. Caliber .50 machine guns were a near sure bet to start a fire during the hot dry days. No dought the shallow soil and ever present rocks made it an easy task. It sure would be fun to sit behind an M2 again and fire off a few belts at the governmet's expense. To think of all the ammo we "had" to expend before we could RTB.
Mike in ILL.

[clodhopper]

Just shoot a steel target in the dark.
I could not belive it untill another shooter proved it.
He illuminated the 100 yard gong with car headlights, and fired copper jacketed lead core bullets.
They sparked pretty good.
Illuminating!

[thegreatdane]

I've personally lead a team of shooters to extinguish a large fire set by tracer ricochets.

[Bret4207]

There may be an issue with the fires. but with the political addition of more gun control to the mix, it's going to be shooters the started the Great Chicago Fire and burned Rome to the ground. My guess is 40 % reality, 60% news/political hype, just like most everything else.

[ShooterAZ]

This kind of news/hype can't be good for our hobby.http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-evacuate-shooting-sparks-utah-fire-104306462.html

[WILCO]

Leave it to the liberal media to blame firearms for this. The conditions that enable these fires have nothing to do with "Tree Hugger" land management policies. Did you know that Fast and Furious is really Bush's fault? Elections have consequences..........

[shdwlkr]

Yep Bret all hype so far most of the fires here in Idaho have been people started either shooting or blowing up those new exploding targets and yes they have confirmed this is what is starting them.
In Utah there is a fire ongoing that was people started again shooting or using those new blow up targets.
So as you can see it is all just hype no real substance to it at all. Tracers have started a few up here even. Yea I know no one would be stupid enough to shoot tracers around all that dead dry grass right. Wrong we have a new breed of shooter that just has no more brains than the common crook and are just as ignorant about safety.

As an update the BLM has put a $100,000 fine on starting fires on BLM land from tracers or those blow up targets so I gues again it is all hype. There is even a fine for having tracers in possession right now on BLM land and I can't remember if there is a fine for having those blow up targets also. They are getting serious about reducing the cause of many fires here.
http://www.blm.gov/id/st/en/info/newsroom/2012/june/exploding_targets.html
http://www.nwcn.com/news/idaho?fId=159503565&fPath=/home&fDomain=10227

[StratsMan]

A couple of years ago, I was at a local outdoor range on state land. An uncontrolled range, with no range master, where people usually bring their own targets and leave the debris...

Some yahoos showed up with 12 gauge shotguns and "specialty ammo"; tracers, incendiaries, etc... They thought it was great fun to shoot that stuff at cardboard boxes only 10 yards away on the ground, never mind the 'skip' of their projectiles... Great fun until one of the incendiary rounds skipped right over the 100 yard berm.... There was some smoke, so what did they do??? Just like a 10 year old kid caught doing something naughty, they ran...

Left it to the rest of us to call a cease fire and put the fire out... Someone saw smoke from the woods, and called the local volunteer department..... By the time they showed up, the fire was out and the yahoos long gone... I just hoped that someone had noted their license number before they split....

[Hardcast416taylor]

Only had 1 fire on the indoor range I ran at our club. I always kept the cement floor swept from 1 shoot to the next. I put the sweepings into a steel 30 gal. can to be disposed of later. Well some clown was looking for a place to toss his cigarette butt so he could shoot . He tossed his butt into the steel can and went to shoot. Between the floor dust and the unburnt powder and paper scraps we had a flare up fire for a few seconds and burning assorted other trash for about 2 more minutes. The barrel contained it. After this incident I restricted smoking to the outer ready room that had ashtrays.Robert

[Longwood]

Fire are no big deal.
They happen every year and have been for millions of years.
The problem with all of the fires is the same problem as the rest of the world is experiencing.
TOO MANY PEOPLE.
I see that far too few are intelligent enough to think before hand.
Too many that think building a house way back in the woods, is a good idea.
Too many doing stupid things that raises everyone else's insurance costs.
Yet,,,, Everyone is still having several babies per person and adding more people, as though it is no big deal.[smilie=b:
It ain't going to get better until it gets much, much worse.
The big problem I see now, and rapidly getting worse, is there is not be enough people left that remember how wonderful it once was to live here.

[Longwood]

The spilled powder on the floor , reminds me of the guy in the SO CAL area toasted himself while loading for trap.
His relatives said he had spilled quite a bit of powder in his carpet and did not clean it up well enough.

[leftiye]

Fire are no big deal.
They happen every year and have been for millions of years.
The problem with all of the fires is the same problem as the rest of the world is experiencing.
TOO MANY PEOPLE.
I see that far too few are intelligent enough to think before hand.
Too many that think building a house way back in the woods, is a good idea.
Too many doing stupid things that raises everyone else's insurance costs.
Yet,,,, Everyone is still having several babies per person and adding more people, as though it is no big deal.[smilie=b:
It ain't going to get better until it gets much, much worse.
The big problem I see now, and rapidly getting worse, is there is not be enough people left that remember how wonderful it once was to live here.

So, (I agree, BTW) how in creation do you get the libtards to come back to a realistic understanding? They think they can "re-imagine" reality you know.

[firefly1957]

I had forgotten last year I was using old spilled powder as a target a bullet striking it around mach 3 will set off smokeless powder with a boom (all types) . Black powder lights also but will start fires even in damp grass!

[Bret4207]

Yep Bret all hype so far most of the fires here in Idaho have been people started either shooting or blowing up those new exploding targets and yes they have confirmed this is what is starting them.
In Utah there is a fire ongoing that was people started again shooting or using those new blow up targets.
So as you can see it is all just hype no real substance to it at all. Tracers have started a few up here even. Yea I know no one would be stupid enough to shoot tracers around all that dead dry grass right. Wrong we have a new breed of shooter that just has no more brains than the common crook and are just as ignorant about safety.

As an update the BLM has put a $100,000 fine on starting fires on BLM land from tracers or those blow up targets so I gues again it is all hype. There is even a fine for having tracers in possession right now on BLM land and I can't remember if there is a fine for having those blow up targets also. They are getting serious about reducing the cause of many fires here.
http://www.blm.gov/id/st/en/info/newsroom/2012/june/exploding_targets.html
http://www.nwcn.com/news/idaho?fId=159503565&fPath=/home&fDomain=10227

Apparently you miss the point. If the fires were started by something mundane, the old cigarette in the grass or bottle left in the woods, there wouldn't be such a big deal about the cause. Since the cause is gun related, that makes it juicier, a political wedge and another tool to use to take our rights.

New breed of shooters? More like a new breed of moron, and they aren't all shooters by any means.

[Longwood]

I had forgotten last year I was using old spilled powder as a target a bullet striking it around mach 3 will set off smokeless powder with a boom (all types) .

And yet,,,,
I have actually heard of people throwing powder away.:shock:
Thanks for the reminder,,, I need to get on with making another batch of black powder.

City kids,,,, I will never understand them.

[leftiye]

Niether will they.

[UT Phoneguy]

Apparently you miss the point. If the fires were started by something mundane, the old cigarette in the grass or bottle left in the woods, there wouldn't be such a big deal about the cause. Since the cause is gun related, that makes it juicier, a political wedge and another tool to use to take our rights.

New breed of shooters? More like a new breed of moron, and they aren't all shooters by any means.

Hard to argue with that- we have a much bigger fire burning- haven't heard what started that one... They never make a big deal out of sparks from trains causing grass fires or lightning strikes.

I was picking up some "mundane" paper targets yesterday and there is a big warning sign in front of the exploding targets. It advises potential customers that they are banned in certain places like BLM land- not sure if it will make a difference.

[Revolver]

... fired copper jacketed lead core bullets.
They sparked pretty good...

Yes, walmart 7.62x39 shooting at steel. Nice sparks visible during the daytime.

Check out the 2:00 mark here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrXEjw8Vdh8

[garbear]

My Mom and Dad and two of my brothers and thier families were evaced. I pass those hills and it is covered in cheek grass. That stuff will catch fire if you fart to close to it. There was signs telling the shooters about the danger of starting a fire. Governor tried to say fire season wasn't yet. Gov. Herbert is dumb. I have been on more fires already then the same time last year. The west is dry and we have been lucky the last couple of years. The biggest fire that I can recall was the Millard flat fire. That shut down both I-15 and I70. Burned up thousands of acres that still have not recovered. The wind blows here and dust from there fills the valley. We don't let our kids out on those days.
Bullets do spark be careful out there,
Most of the dummies in Utah county don't take anything to put out a fire. i.e. a shovel. And as stated we have a new breed of shooter that don't care. i have seen them all they care about is shooting cheap ammo and not doing real target or practise to be marskmen.


Garbear

[Frank46]

This happened at our range some years ago. They were burning all the old targets and evidentlty figgured it was out. Well it wasn't. Everyone who had any liquid ran out there and found an area about 6x6' merrily burning away. Took us about a half hour to extinguish the fire.
Usually when we go we always have a gallon jug of water for drinking puoposes. There was a small well not potable water that we used to fill the jugs once they were empty. Funny at the time but if it had gotten bigger than we could handle then the fire dept gets involved. Some guys had shovels in their trucks and that helped a lot. Frank

[1Shirt]

A friend in Manitou Springs, Co (who was evacuated) says that there is a rumor that some of the fires may have been caused by target shooters who were shooting at propane btls. Also from the local news, rumor of arson.
1Shirt!:coffeecom

[popper]

Wanted to go shoot targets in the Ca hills in the 60's. Posted everywhere ( San Louis to San Diego) Fire ban NO SHOOTING! of any kind. Nothing new.