By the Associated Press - 03/27/07
MISSOULA (AP) — A man died at a Seattle hospital Monday after being burned critically a day earlier at his Missoula home, where investigators say fireworks and materials to make them exploded in the man’s garage.
Eugene “Tad� Kolwicz, 53, died at Harborview Medical Center, Missoula County Sheriff Mike McMeekin said. Kolwicz suffered burns on 75 percent of his body, said Jason Diehl, assistant to the Missoula fire chief.
Kolwicz was a fire management specialist for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
There were no reports of injury to others after the Sunday night blasts that burned several homes and broke windows in some.
Diehl said the quantity of fireworks at the Kolwicz home was large. It appears the explosions were accidental, Diehl said.
Robert Stokes said he was drinking coffee in his home about a block away when the initial explosion ripped the coffee cup from his hand. Stokes went outside and found his neighbor on fire.
“The skin on his body was falling off,� Stokes said.
He and several other neighbors patted Kolwicz to put out the fire and Stokes said that as they did so, small explosions burst from the Kolwicz garage. Fire destroyed the garage.
MISSOULA (AP) — A man died at a Seattle hospital Monday after being burned critically a day earlier at his Missoula home, where investigators say fireworks and materials to make them exploded in the man’s garage.
Eugene “Tad� Kolwicz, 53, died at Harborview Medical Center, Missoula County Sheriff Mike McMeekin said. Kolwicz suffered burns on 75 percent of his body, said Jason Diehl, assistant to the Missoula fire chief.
Kolwicz was a fire management specialist for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
There were no reports of injury to others after the Sunday night blasts that burned several homes and broke windows in some.
Diehl said the quantity of fireworks at the Kolwicz home was large. It appears the explosions were accidental, Diehl said.
Robert Stokes said he was drinking coffee in his home about a block away when the initial explosion ripped the coffee cup from his hand. Stokes went outside and found his neighbor on fire.
“The skin on his body was falling off,� Stokes said.
He and several other neighbors patted Kolwicz to put out the fire and Stokes said that as they did so, small explosions burst from the Kolwicz garage. Fire destroyed the garage.
