Fire resulted in minor detonations of the shells in depots, scattered over the industrial part of the city.

After this first fire Vsevolod Luknitsky, an officer who had already worked for 11 years at the plant, was appointed director.

The fire began from a negligent guard's cigar stub at Porokhovaya (now Lagernaya) railway station, the nearest to the plant.

The rumors said that over 500 were already killed, and Kazan Kremlin as well as the industrial area was totally destroyed.

Just after the beginning of the fire Luknitsky arrived at the plant and personally unlocked a sluice to douse dangerous depots and workshops.

The next two days fire devastated most of the plant, but no major detonation followed, possibly due to Luknitsky's personal heroism.

[1] Martial law was declared in the city on the next day, as criminals marauded in deserted quarters.

During Soviet rule the official explanation of the explosion was based not on negligence, but on a diversion of counter-revolutionary movements.