On January 11 , 1917 , a fire started in Building 30 of the Canadian Car and Foundry Company , in what is now Lyndhurst , in a plant that was producing munitions for sale to the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire during World War I . After a spill of flammable liquid started a fire in a building where shells were cleaned , about 500,000 , three-inch ( 76 mm ) explosive shells were discharged in about four hours , destroying the entire facility . It was said to have been a spectacle more magnificent than the explosion at Black Tom in Jersey City , New Jersey
Black Tom
Black Tom explosion
Lyndhurst, New Jersey