"Forest Fire" responsible for a 2.5mi *mushroom cloud*?

[Peter Gutmann]

Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> writes:

>About 4.5 kT of 50:50 ammonium nitrate/ammonium sulfate mix. One of the
>largest, if not *the* largest nonnuclear explosions ever.

The largest man-made explosion is usually claimed to be Halifax (about 3000
tons of assorted HE's), but there are a pile of others that also count: Oppau,
Texas City, Port Chicago, Lake Denmark, Silvertown, Fauld (more explosives
involved than Halifax, but less loss of life, so Halifax seems to get all the
publicity), etc etc etc.

Peter.