The event gained national attention, covered by multiple media outlets, and triggered a two-year federal investigation that eventually led to the conviction of 21 people including the owner of the factory, a man who was considered to be the mastermind, and several others from multiple states who conspired to manufacture, transport, and/or allow the fireworks manufactured at the operation to be transported.
[6] In December 1982, Webb, relative David Parks, and Howard Emmett Bramblett of nearby Ocoee began manufacturing M-80 and M-100 fireworks, which are banned by federal laws, in an old metal dairy barn on the farm.
[6] He reportedly taught Webb and Parks how to manufacture these fireworks, and connected them with suppliers of materials and distributors in multiple states.
[1] Between December 1982 and the date of the explosion, a total of 1,542,880 M-series fireworks were reported to have been manufactured at the factory and distributed to at least twelve states.
[1] The force of the blast shattered windows in several homes and other structures on nearby properties, which reportedly resulted in some neighbors receiving minor cut wounds.
[12] Several witnesses claimed to have seen a white mushroom cloud which was estimated to be 600 to 800 feet (180 to 240 m) tall, and the blast was heard and felt in Cleveland over 20 miles (32 km) away.
[1] Investigators concluded that other possible causes could have been sparking from an electrical wire, light fixture, or other appliance found at the site; and the scraping of boots on the floor.
[14][16] Authorities found a cache of 172 boxes of unexploded fireworks worth about $20,000[13] (equivalent to $61,183 in 2023) and estimated to weigh more than 2,500 pounds (1,100 kg) and six 55-gallon (200-liter) steel drums full of chemical explosives in a nearby trailer.
[17][18] Federal firearms agents also found a firework case eight to ten inches (twenty to thirty centimetres) in length and three to four inches (eight to ten centimetres) in diameter which, due to the large size, prompted Polk County deputies to speculate that some of the explosives were being purchased by people with criminal intents, such as terrorists.
[13] The undetonated explosives found were buried in the ground on the farm and later detonated in an open pit in nearby Copperhill having been used as evidence in Webb's trial.
[10][5] Dan Lee Webb, who had been in Lansing, Illinois, delivering 86,400 M-80s during the event, surrendered at the Polk County Jail two days later.
[22] Bramblett was arrested two days later in nearby Chatsworth, Georgia, after cases of M-80 fireworks were found in two locations in Murray County.
[7] A federal court jury convicted him and another man on May 3, 1984, of one count of manufacturing illegal fireworks, one of conspiracy, and one of storing the homemade explosives.
He was sentenced to ten years in prison on July 2, 1984, for his role in a similar incident that occurred on May 24, 1983, in Rowesville, South Carolina, in which an explosion at an illegal fireworks operation killed two and injured five.
[23] On August 27, 1985, twenty people from nine different states, including Bramblett and Miller, were indicted on federal charges for conspiring to supply materials, manufacture, sell, and distribute the illegal fireworks made at the farm to as many as twelve states including Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.
[1] A segment about the event is also included in Tennessee Tragedies: Natural, Technological, and Societal Disasters in the Volunteer State, a 2012 book by former TEMA official Allen R.