Three Bodies Recovered in Fireworks Explosion

An anguished fireworks warehouse owner expressed sympathy Friday for three employees, including his father, who were killed when explosions tore through the building, the second deadly fireworks accident this week.

“I ask you to pray for the peace and comfort of us and all that are hurting,” a teary-eyed Joe Lamb read from a handwritten statement. “Three wonderful people ... tragically lost their lives doing something they truly loved to do.”

The three workers’ bodies were recovered early Friday, hours after the blasts at the Pyrotechnics by Lamb Co.’s warehouse.

Five people suffered minor injuries, and the warehouse and six nearby houses were damaged or destroyed.

Twelve fireworks displays planned Friday night in East Texas cities were canceled, including Kilgore’s.

On Wednesday, a truck packed with fireworks exploded in Bonita Springs, Fla., killing five workers who had been unloading the shipment for Independence Day displays there and in Naples.

Investigators have said that both blasts appeared to have been accidental.

“We’re leaning toward static electricity, some kind of spark,” Kilgore Police Chief Ronnie Moore said Friday.

Lamb’s business was appropriately registered and had no prior problems, said Clay Alexander, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent.

Kilgore police identified the victims as Marvin Lamb, Melinda Edmundson, 25, and Martin Donner, 58. Marvin Lamb’s age was not available.

Donner was a pyrotechnician who was helping set up eight fireworks displays when the explosions occurred, said his daughter Sarah, 29.

Donner was a former firefighter and aviation professor at LeTourneau University, she said.

“He was a very loving, compassionate, caring man who loved God first of all, and his family and everyone around him,” she said.

The blasts shot fireworks and other debris across several blocks in this town 115 miles southeast of Dallas.

About 25 people were displaced, including 15 who were in one home where relatives had gathered for the holiday weekend.

The American Red Cross was helping them find places to stay.

Authorities said thousands of pounds of fireworks were inside the warehouse and a tractor-trailer rig parked outside the building.

The area was secured Friday morning, and the remaining fireworks were being taken to a remote firing range to be detonated.