Man drives bombs to station

Police said a man is lucky his car wasn’t blown to bits Friday when he drove several explosive devices he found in a storage unit to a Spokane fire station.

The man was cleaning out a previously owned storage unit Friday in Airway Heights when he happened across a few items labeled “explosive,” as well as other suspicious-looking objects, said Cpl. Ernie Wuthrich of the Spokane Police Department’s bomb squad.

The man then put the bombs in his vehicle, drove to Fire Station No. 3 at the corner of Ash Street and Indiana Avenue and attempted to give them to firefighters to dispose of.

Two of the items were small “railroad torpedoes,” which are exploded loudly on tracks to let train conductors know they’ve backed up far enough.

Five or six other devices were found that resembled pipe bombs.

Each was about the size of a finger, Wuthrich said.

The bomb squad was called in, and traffic on Ash Street was stopped and diverted.

Cars were cleared away from the intersection while police used a robot to locate and handle the bombs.

It’s highly unwise to handle explosives, Wuthrich said, and even more ill-advised to try to take them to authorities for disposal.

“If you find something like that, don’t pick it up,” he said. “Just give us a call and we’ll come out.”

Police will look into who was the previous owner of the storage unit, Wuthrich said.