Hold the Presses on West, Texas

The fertilizer warehouse that burned and exploded in West, Texas, on April 17, killing 15 people, was not equipped with fire sprinklers, said Dan Keeney, a spokesman for West Fertilizer Co. and its parent, Adair Grain Inc.

“We can confirm that there were no sprinklers in the building,” Keeney said Friday in response to a question from The Dallas Morning News. “There were fire extinguishers in the building.”

The fire detonated tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, but investigators have not announced how they believe the fire started. Officials have not publicly tied the fire to the arrest Friday morning of West paramedic Bryce Reed, 31, on a charge of possessing a destructive device. Bryce was taken into federal custody.

  Dallas News

Bryce Reed, 31, previously told The Dallas Morning News that he assumed radio command of the April 17 incident after the explosion killed his superiors and colleagues. He is now accused of giving a pipe bomb to an unnamed person in nearby Abbott on April 26, the day after he played a prominent role in the memorial service for 12 emergency responders killed in the blast.

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The U.S. attorney’s office, which is prosecuting Reed on the federal bomb charge, said in a prepared statement that “authorities will not speculate” whether the pipe bomb Reed allegedly had is tied to the plant explosion.

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[T]he sister of the firefighter that Reed eulogized at a public memorial last month said she had to ask police to guard her deceased brother’s apartment because she feared Reed had been stealing from it since the explosion.

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According to the ATF’s criminal complaint affidavit against Reed, someone who lives in Abbott called the McLennan County Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday about a “possible destructive device” that they had “unwittingly taken possession of” from the man.

  Dallas News

Unwittingly? Dim-wittedly, maybe.

One neighbor, who asked that his name be withheld to protect his family’s safety, said Bryce Reed told him his wife had left him. The man said Bryce Reed also told him that the ATF was investigating him for fraud and that his attorneys had advised him to “get the hell out of Dodge.”

The neighbor said that Bryce Reed told him that he had a pipe bomb that had belonged to Cyrus Reed, but that he had given it to a friend to store.

Cyrus Reed is not related to Bryce Reed, but is one of the responders to the fertilizer plant fire and was killed in the blast. (If I’ve got all the pieces of this weird puzzle straight.)

From the beginning, the state fire marshal’s office has said it is still working to determine — or rule out — whether the event was a criminal act or an industrial accident. The fire marshal’s office does not expect to determine the cause of the fire that preceded the deadly explosion until later this month. The blast itself is believed to have been fueled largely by ammonium nitrate kept at the plant.

Criminal act? Not terrorism? No, “Reed” doesn’t sound Islamic.