Old dynamite found in Black Mountain Road shed

February 23, 2012

A woman doing some early spring cleaning in a shed on her property on Black Mountain Road Monday morning needed a little extra help when she came across what appeared to be a bag of dynamite. According the Sheriff's Chief Deputy Rich Stevens, the woman was cleaning the shed and opened an old cabinet that was tucked in the back when she found the explosives. She immediately suspected what it was and called the sheriff's office. Deputies and emergency incident commander Bob Graham were sent to the scene, where they initially identified the material and, not knowing how old or volatile it might be, secured the scene and called in the Spokane Bomb Squad. "It wasn't that much material," Stevens said, "maybe two sticks in total, a type often used in rock quarries." A bomb squad team arrived Tuesday morning, took the dynamite to a safe area on the property and detonated it there. "It made a pretty good boom," Stevens said, adding that the property owner did the right thing in not attempting to move the suspicious material and calling for help.