By Stephanie Richards
An old box of dynamite was found Wednesday, Sept. 26, afternoon in an abandoned shed on University Avenue.
'Nobody got hurt, and everything is fine,' said Scott Alvord, Provo Fire Chief.
A person salvaging the building found the box of dynamite covered with nitroglycerine crystals and called the authorities.
The Metro Bomb Squad, composed of Utah County, Provo City, and BYU, responded to the call and determined that the box was too dangerous to move.
When dynamite sweats it gives off nitroglycerine, which is a highly explosive chemical. It must be moved some other way than picking it up, Alvord said.
The Metro Bomb Squad decided to burn the explosives, and they cleared the material away from the sides of the shed to control the fire.
The dynamite itself was not active because it was so old, Alvord said. Provo Fire Department was able to burn the nitroglycerine without exploding the dynamite.
However, authorities closed down University Avenue between 2230 and 3700 North for a few hours to ensure safety.
Chip Kemp, an employee of Eclipse Marketing, located adjacent to the shed where the dynamite was found, said that the police notified Eclipse that they were going to burn down the house.
'I knew that there was an old house over there, but I wasn''t sure what it was,' Kemp said.
Kemp said that he saw a hazardous material truck located in front of the area earlier in the afternoon and he figured something was going on but he was not sure what it was.
A large crowd began to draw around the area as the smoke became visible throughout Provo.
'We saw the smoke clear out in East Bay and decided to see what was going on,' said Ruth Winkler of Provo.