The blasts started just after 1 p.m. and continued for at least two hours as ammunition exploded, said Mia West, public information officer in Colebrook.
Firefighters were unable to get close enough to fight the blaze because ammunition was still going off more than two hours after the initial blast, West said.
About 40 nearby homes were evacuated, and some residents reported hearing the initial explosion up to 1 1/2 miles away, West said. A shelter was set up at the town offices.
“We did hear two distinct bangs,’’ said Karen Ladd, editor and publisher of The News and Sentinel newspaper in Colebrook.
She thought something had hit the roof of her building. “It knocked a picture off of my wall, right next to my desk. I will admit I panicked and I said, ‘Get out!’ ’’
Several communities in New Hampshire and Vermont sent fire crews.
“It’s just major, major explosions and black powder,’’ said Mishel Fenn, a bartender at the Colebrook House motel who felt the blast two blocks away. “It shook the building, and I’m in a large building.’’
According to a report in a January issue of The Colebrook Chronicle, a weekly newspaper, a worker at the plant suffered serious injuries to his face and wrist when a machine that processes gunpowder flashed in his face. That fire was put out quickly.
Colebrook is about 140 miles north of the capital city of Concord and 10 miles from the Canadian border.
