West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion: ATF reward for info

WEST, Texas — Monday marked 10 years since a fertilizer plant exploded in West, Texas, in McLennan County. And government issued a reminder: There remains to be a $50,000 reward for information that ends up in an arrest within the hearth that took place prior to the explosion.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officers on Monday issued a news free up concerning the case and reward.

The explosion ended in the deaths of 15 other folks, together with 12 first responders, and it injured 300 others and destroyed greater than 500 houses.

It took place at the night time of April 17, 2013, in a while prior to 8 p.m. Twenty-two mins previous, a hearth was once reported on the West Fertilizer facility. The explosion took place as crews have been responding to the fireplace on the fertilizer plant.

Investigators carried out greater than 400 interviews, reviewed witness footage and video and did “extensive scientific testing” on the ATF’s hearth analysis lab in Maryland. In the tip, investigators dominated — through technique of removing — that the fireplace was once “incendiary,” which means it was once deliberately set.

No suspects or individuals of passion had been known within the hearth and explosion.

The ATF, Texas Rangers, and the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office are a few of the companies nonetheless in search of the general public’s assist in figuring out somebody accountable for the fireplace.

Anyone with information can name the ATF at 1-888-ATF-TIPS or ship info through e-mail to ATFTips@atf.gov or throughout the ATF’s web site at www.atf.gov/contact/atftips.

When the explosion took place, WFC had roughly 40 to 60 lots of ammonium nitrate at its facility. 

The development housing all of it was once picket. It was once constructed within the Sixties with a wooden body, the rafters have been picket, or even a part of the roof was once plywood. 

The ammonium nitrate was once even saved in a picket bin. 

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board discovered “the construction of the bins and other building materials, as well as the lack of an automatic sprinkler system, plausibly contributed to the detonation.”