The Woodward News

Local News

February 18, 2013

Bomb squad called in to check out house

No explosives found

Woodward News

Woodward, Okla. — A fire call Monday afternoon in the 300 block of East Locust turned into an incident that lasted for several hours.

Woodward firefighters responded to the call at a vacant house and attacked the fire from the outside, When firefighters entered the house to finish extinguishing the fire, they discovered chemicals that were being cooked on a kitchen stove.

After more investigation authorities believed someone may have been attempting to make some sort of explosives.

Officials called in the Oklahoma Highway Patrol bomb squad and FBI to check out the chemicals.

Homes within a one-block radius of 300 East Locust were evacuted for several hours while the bomb squad was on its way.

OHP tests eventually showed no explosives and by a little after 8:30 p.m. people were being let back into their homes in the area.

By 9 p.m., police and fire units had been released from the scene.

Fire Chief Steve Day said that officials decided to investigate the matter because "it's better to be safe than sorry."

"Our guys are trained to look for stuff that seems out of place," Day said.  "When they saw this substance in the home, we decided it was best to call in someone with a little more expertise than us to check it out."

After using a HazMatID machine to run a chemical analysis on the substance, the fire chief said that the OHP troopers "found that there were no drugs, no explosives."

Since the material was "deemed to be safe," Day said that's when it was determined that emergency officials could clear the scene and let people back into their residences.

 

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