Live Smoke Bomb and Dud Grenade Found at Flagler County Landfill; Bomb Is Safely Detonated

A member of the St. Johns County Sheriiff's Office's bomb squad shows the dud pineapple grenade found at the Flagler County landfill this morning. Click on the image for larger view. (© FlaglerLive) — A member of the St. Johns County Sheriiff’s Office’s bomb squad shows the dud pineapple grenade found at the Flagler County landfill this morning. Click on the image for larger view. (© FlaglerLive)

For the second time in six weeks, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office’s bomb squad was called into Flagler County early Wednesday morning to investigate the discovery of a live grenade–in this case, a live smoke bomb from the Vietnam era, packed alongside a dud grenade from World War II, and discovered in the hazardous materials pile at the Flagler County landfill.

The bomb squad detonated the smoke grenade just before 11 a.m. at the landfill. The dud pineapple grenade posed no danger. The two employees working at the landfill this morning found the grenades as they worked under an overhang there. They called in the report of the discovery at 7:22. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Offfice responded to the scene, and the bomb squad arrived about an hour later.

The evening of Oct. 1, the squad’s robot, nicknamed Frosty, removed a live pineapple grenade from the pavement at Palm Coast Parkway and Belle Terre Parkway, and later detonated it in an area of Hargrove Grade.

This morning’s detonation took place at 10:47 a.m. See the image sequence of the detonation, followed by the bomb squad triggering a controlled release of the smoke from the remains of the bomb, below.

Det. Justin Anderson is a team leader with the St. Johns County Sheriff's Bomb Squad. (© FlaglerLive) — Det. Justin Anderson is a team leader with the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Bomb Squad. (© FlaglerLive)

Det. Justin Anderson, a team leader with the bomb squad, said the World War II-Korean War era pineapple grenade had been “demilitarized,” that is, the explosives had been removed and the grenade hollowed out. The smoke bomb was functional, however.

“There are certain restrictions on the actual possession and ownership of it,” Anderson said of the smoke grenade. “A lot of it fall underneath the ATF guidelines. That particular smoke bomb, or smoke grenade, is a military grenade, more than likely from the Vietnam to probably around the 1980s era, commonly used as a diversionary tactic as well as to conceal troop movements and things like that. It does have a small explosive charge inside of it, which is why it makes a little bit of a danger as far as if you were told it in your hand, as well as it burns very hot, because the chemical that actually produces the smoke has to turn into molten metal. It is potentially dangerous, it can cause fires if it’s placed in dry vegetation or somebody’s house.”

Video: The Smoke Bomb in a Controlled Release[media id=354 width=500 height=400]