Anchorage Daily News

Friday would have been a regular day out at McGhan Storage near Big Lake, but then the family of Clay Holzl, a deceased pyrotechnician, came across a large box of fireworks while sorting through his unit.

Now these weren't your ordinary bottle rockets. They were big, commercial exploders, maybe a hundred times more potent than anything the average person can buy, and they'd been there for who knows how long.

And so began a Big Lake tale that ended with a bang big enough to shatter glass a half mile away.

Upon finding the fireworks in the unit, the family came to Kim Sinnett, who manages McGhan's, and asked her what to do. It goes without saying that she wasn't too pleased to discover the explosives, which are not allowed in storage as a general rule.

Sinnett's husband thought maybe they should just light the things, but instead she put in a call to Robert Hall, owner of Gorilla Fireworks, to see if he had any use for them.

The community of Alaska pyrotechnicians being what it is, Hall knew all about Holzl. The guy was raised by a chemical engineer, and he liked to experiment, Hall said.

"When he was 15, he was making his own nitroglycerine," he said. "This guy liked to blow stuff up."

Judging from the description of the fireworks, Hall concluded they were at least a decade old. That meant at least 10 freezes and 10 thaws. And, there was always the possibility that Holzl could have doctored them to supersize their boom. Hall didn't want them and he didn't think it was a good idea to light them.

"I suggested they play it by the book," he said.

So, Sinnett called the fire department, and they called Alaska State Troopers. Pretty soon there were people there from the Army and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Sinnett guessed there were about 20 of them in all, suited up in all manner of safety gear.

Putting their heads together, the agencies decided the best thing to do was blow the fireworks up. The best way to do that, they concluded, was to use C-4 plastic explosives. Around 30 pounds, according to Lt. Col. Jonathan Allen, an Army spokesman.

"We were getting rid of it as safely as possible," said Megan Peters, a trooper spokeswoman.

So, the officers went about blocking off roads and alerting the neighbors.

"They were telling us, 'You need to evacuate,' and we were like, 'Where do you want us to go?' and they were like, 'Go home,' and we were like, 'We live here,' " Sinnett said.

Some people left, others didn't. Sinnett decided to stick around to watch. By then it was getting close to 11 p.m. The officers took the fireworks to a swampy clearing down the road and loaded them with explosives. Everybody braced themselves.

Kaboom!

Pictures rattled. Sleeping people woke up. Windows broke in at least two homes, according to the troopers.

"It sounded like a sonic boom," said Nancy Killoran, who lives a half mile down the road.

Jerry Weber, who lives five miles away, heard it too.

"It was just a big old whooomp," he said.

Alarmed residents made calls to local media. The explosion wound up on the television news. A very displeased couple appeared on KTUU Channel 2 beside a large shard of what had once been a picture window. Troopers promised "to further assess the damaged windows" on Monday.

Sinnett, who saw the whole thing, said it was kind of pretty.

"You could see all the sparkle and glitter," she said. "So it was obvious it really was just fireworks."

In retrospect, the military explosives and neighborhood evacuation seemed a little like overkill, she said.

Hall suspected the explosives experts might have taken a little pleasure in the whole thing, which is something he didn't hold against them.

"They had their own little blaze of glory," he said.

Holzl's family were on their way out of state and couldn't be reached Saturday night, but Hall said they thought it was kind of an appropriate last statement for a man who got a charge out of a nice, loud explosion.

"His family was kind of laughing," Hall said. "The last memory they'll have of Clay is a big boom."

Find Julia O'Malley online at adn.com/contact/jomalley or call 257-4591.

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