Yellow Pages
ANACORTES — An illegal firework burned a man in his 70s Friday afternoon when a spark from a grinder he was using lit the fuse of the explosive.
The man was sharpening a lawn mower blade in his garage just before 2 p.m. when the M-80-type firework exploded, said Mike Noyes, fire chief for the Mount Erie Fire Department.
“Basically you just get a fireball,” Noyes said. “They’re just a smaller version of a stick of dynamite designed to go boom — that’s why their illegal.”
The victim suffered first-degree burns on his face, and minor burns on his arms. He was wearing safety glasses while he was grinding the lawn mower blade, which prevented any eye damage, Noyes said. The man’s wife, who heard the explosion from their house on Campbell Lake Road, took the burn victim to the hospital and he was released later that night.
“Everybody got lucky,” Noyes said. “We didn’t have a structure fire, and he got to go home with all his digits, and a little less hair.”
Noyes said he did not know if the man will be cited for the illegal explosive. The man told firefighters that he had been meaning to get rid of the firework.
• Tahlia Ganser can be reached at 360-416-2148 or at .
