'I saw this big red fireball' says woman burned in shooting range fire

VIRGINIA BEACH

The plan was to fire off a few rounds at the range and go out for a Mother's Day lunch.

Instead, Tanna Groves-Poleck ended up in the emergency room with second- and third-degree burns to her hands and face.

"I saw this big red fireball, and it just rolled across the floor," she said Friday, recalling the May 11 explosion and fire at A&P Arms' Lynnhaven Shooting Range that left seven people with burn injuries.

Gunpowder residue, stored just feet from the firing line, ignited the blaze, fire investigators have concluded.

The unburned powder was in a plastic bag and a five-gallon bucket in a shooting lane about five feet from where customers were firing guns, said R.W. Miner, a city fire investigator.

The bag and bucket were out of sight behind a four-foot wall that people shoot over. Either a spark from gunfire or a hot brass shell ignited the unburned powder stashed at the end of shooting lane 18, the fire incident report said. The flash instantly ignited gunpowder-saturated cloth used for soundproofing in the ceiling and the carpet in the shooting lane, Miner said.

"After years and years of buildup, that just gave it great fuel," he said.

Indoor gun range operators typically sweep or vacuum up unburned powder that is discharged when guns are fired. The residue is normally stored away from the shooting area, said Jim Lee, who runs the indoor range at Superior Pawn and Gun in Virginia Beach.

"It's just good common-sense housekeeping," he said. "Keeps the range safe."

The unburned powder is either picked up by a contractor who collects used bullets or is thrown out, Lee said.

No one at Lynnhaven Shooting Range would comment on its practices. The range, near Lynnhaven Mall, has reopened. A man who answered the phone there Friday identified himself as the manager, refused to give his name, and then hung up.

The range is owned by Shooting Sports Distributors Inc. The president of the company is Norman Gladden Jr., according to state records. Gladden did not respond to messages left at his Hampton gun store and on his cell phone.

The fire was the third at the range in the past 17 years. Fires in 1991 and 1994 were likely caused by the accumulation of lead dust, which is released when bullets hit targets, according to fire department correspondence and news reports. There were no injuries in those incidents.

In June, A&P Arms was fined $1,740 after being cited for five violations by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The violations were for "lead, inorganic fumes and dusts" and employee exposure to sodium hydroxide.

The store's U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives license is under review for issues not related to the fire, an agency spokesman said last month.

A former store manager, Marcus A. McCall, was sentenced to 15 months for stealing 51 firearms in April, including a submachine gun.

Graves-Poleck went to the range May 11 with her husband, her stepson, who was trying out a new rifle, and his fiancee.

"We were just there for a Mother's Day outing," she said.

The blast hit when they were packing up their guns after an hour and a half of shooting.

"The only thing I remember seeing is a big red fireball coming at me," she said. "It hit me in the face and head. It burned my hands, and that's the only thing that kept it from my eyes. I would have been blind, my doctors said."

She's been in the hospital on and off since the fire for skin grafts and had just returned from a 12-day stint, she said.

The blaze, which firefighters called a flash fire, happened so fast that people couldn't get of the way, Investigator Miner said.

"It wasn't one of those things where you could say, 'I think we need to get out of here,' " he said. "No one had time for that."

Aaron Applegate, (757) 222-5122, aaron.applegate@pilotonline.com