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More on Waco
Posted by David Hardy · 15 February 2012 08:25 PM
Mike McNulty's Waco blog has been expanding. His most recent addition is infrared video showing how a gunshot can ignite methylene chloride spray (meth chloride being the solvent used to dissolve the "tear gas" powder before it was show into the Davidian residence. Meth chloride has other undesirable properties. It has a chemical affinity to modern anesthetics, and can have the same effects, and it also quickly metabolizes to carbon monoxide... fatalities have been reported from that effect ... probably not a good thing to inhale just before a fire breaks out).
Another thing about methylene chloride (CH2Cl2) is that when you heat it in the presence of air, you can get phosgene which was one of the most feared war gasses of World War I. Please note that this is temperature dependent and uses more energy than the reaction releases. Also, as much material as was pumped into the Davidian compound, I wonder how much plain air was left in there. Simple suffocation seems possible, certainly in the rooms nearest the entry point.