BILLINGS – Officials with state and federal agencies are investigating the cause of an explosion at a fireworks factory in south-central Montana that destroyed a shipping container and was heard up to 10 miles away.
Nobody was injured in the blast about 10 p.m. Thursday at Next FX, south of Columbus, Columbus Fire Rescue said.
“It was not a normal thing. In 13 years, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Nick Jacobs, assistant fire chief of Columbus Fire Rescue. He called the explosion “a freak occurrence.”
Daniel Cramer of Enid, Oklahoma, was visiting with his parents on their porch a few miles from the fireworks factory when they saw the explosion.
“It was like an atomic bomb went off, the whole sky lit up,” Cramer told The Billings Gazette. “And, then, like 15 or 20 seconds later, we felt it. We felt the boom roll past.”
Officials with Next FX declined to comment on the extent of the damage. But Jacobs said a shipping container was destroyed, and the fire burned a couple of acres of grass. The fire was under control by 1 a.m. Friday, he said.
Next FX makes theatrical and close-proximity fireworks for concerts and sporting events.
The Montana Fire Marshal’s Office and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating the explosion.