Fahrenheit 410°
Most of the people who stop by here will be familiar with the Ray Bradbury novel, Fahrenheit 451, a future in which books are banned and burned if found. The title is a reference to the temperature at which paper ignites.
Ammonium nitrate is widely used by farmers as a fertilizer, but it also has a secondary use as a low-grade explosive. While it is generally safe, you don’t want it anywhere that might reach 410° Fahrenheit because that is its flashpoint when it becomes explosive.
Having a fire at a fertilizer plant is almost guaranteed to result in an explosion like this:
Emergency services are searching for survivors after a blast at a fertiliser plant in the US state of Texas killed between five and 15 people.
More than 160 people were injured and dozens of buildings destroyed in the town of West, near Waco.
You don’t fight fires at fertilizer plants, you evacuate people and wait for the explosion. fertilizer plants should have automated fire suppression systems, foam for preference, because of the risk.
Timothy McVeigh added fuel oil to a load of ammonium nitrate and blew up the Federal building in Oklahoma City. The fuel oil increases the power of the explosion, and the mixture is widely used in mining.
Putting a fertilizer plant in a town is just guaranteeing a disaster at some point.
