Lithgow

[Max Hedges]

Hey Tony have you been playing with crackers again because you have been making the news this morning. Hope everyone is alright.

Max

[Jon Skagfeld]

Huh?... ...crackers as in "bonkers", crackers as in breakfast goodies, crackers as in bangstick noisy neat stuff? ?

"We don't need no stinkin' crackers". Name the (plagiarized reference) movie.

Reference bangsticks and such...The two worst things a soldier can hear...a click when it should go bang, and a bang when it should go click.

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

...or that click beneath the foot you just put your weight on...

Ok everybody, we in the right-side-up part of the world give up -- what's going on in Lithgow? Did our Tony blow something up again?

[Keith Webb]

Fun fireworks

Fire fighters are working to contain a huge fire at a fireworks factory near Lithgow, west of Sydney, after several explosions at the site.

Police have reportedly evacuated houses adjoining the Howard and Sons pyrotechnics manufacturing plant at Wallerawang, and so far there are no reports of injuries.

The media spokesman for the New South Wales fire brigade Chris Jurgeit says they received many calls from people in the area.

"We received numerous triple-0 [calls] just earlier after 10:00 tonight," he said.

"And the reports [said] there were numerous explosions or several explosions in the pyrotechnics factory.

"So at the moment we've got five fire brigade pumpers on site and the Rural Fire Service also is on site."

Sky News is reporting that the explosions were felt from as much as 30 kilometres away.

New South Wales Rural Fire Service spokesperson Rebel Talbert told Sky News that emergency crews have created an exclusion zone one kilometre around the factory.

"It really is a waiting game for the moment, which is quite frustrating for our firefighters," she said.

"At the moment it's just waiting and taking all the right precautions to make sure everyone's safe.

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

It finally reached our news networks over here, just saw it on CTV Newsnet... pretty lights! Good job, Tony!

[Tony Smith]

This was a whopper!

Howard and Sons are located about 8kms from home. I saw a flash that I assumed was lightning, and a moment later heard a huge thump that definately wasn't thunder. The thump was apparently heard 30kms away. The pretty lights caught on the news was just the small fires after the big bang. It is now believed that the explosion was of 17 tons of fireworks and gunpowder!

2x 40' shipping containers used as storage Magazines have been completely obliterated. Houses closer to the scene had windows blown in and doors come off frames.

Howard and Sons are a large Fireworks firm, and although they don't have the contract for this years New Year's Eve display in Sydney, it is none the less peak season for them and the factory is quite busy and they have a large amount of stock on hand waiting for delivery.

Initially it was thought that a break in had occurred on site with the Thieves attempting to gain access to the aforementioned quantities of stock which would find a ready market, and Forensic Police expected to find Somebody in the ruins, but no signs have been found yet. This has of course engendered many jokes about town, with the Crooks reported to have been searching the factory by the illumination of a cigarette lighter, or breaking into shipping containers with an Angle Grinder.

I have had business dealings with H&S, and hope they get back on their feet again soon. As the damage seems confined to a storage area, and thankfully no injuries occurred, production shouldn't be affected for too long.

Originally posted by Tony Smith
This was a whopper!
As the damage seems confined to a storage area, and thankfully no injuries occurred, production shouldn't be affected for too long.

Great news Tony!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I expected to hear tragic stories out of this so am really glad for all thats its so fortunate the damage sounds minimal in spite of the big bang ... incredible! and whew!

[Keith Webb]

Great to hear nobody was hurt - but it must have been quite an explosion! It must have been quite something to experience as an observer, even 8 Km away.