"newshound" wrote in message
...


"Steve W." wrote in message
...
Rich Grise wrote:
Ignoramus18541 wrote:
On 2010-11-28, Steve B wrote:
We go on dry lakes that are/were used for strafing and bombing
practice.
We
are always finding weird pieces of whatnot. For the longest time, we
have been finding a light metal grey bar, about an inch square, and
eight
inches
long.

snipped

There are only a couple types of extinguishing agents that will actually
put magnesium.
Class D agents like Sodium Carbonate, Graphite/Copper powder and similar.

Sand, Dirt and the like will work because they stop all oxygen from
reaching the mg.

You can use water BUT you need a LOT of it VERY fast to do any good. You
need to drop the entire amount of magnesium below ignition temperature
and keep it there long enough for the reaction to stop. Not easy to do
even with a fire hose!

OH and FYI, for folks who think they don't need to worry about it. Don't
look over your vehicles! MANY parts are made of magnesium alloys.


--
Steve W.

You beat me to it (except for point 3, which I hadn't thought about).

What I'd like to know is what these bars were. ISTR that tracer rounds are
made of (or contain) magnesium. I suppose these could have been part of
some sort of incendiary device which hadn't gone off properly?

We surmised that they were flares that did not ignite. Some flares are for
illumination, others are to fool enemy radar and missiles.

Steve