Suspicion that the fire and subsequent explosions at the EMCO ammunition plant may have been deliberately caused points toward Russia, according to ammunition expert and former deputy technical director of the company Naiden Iliev. He said Russia could potentially benefit from destabilizing the situation in Bulgaria, while stressing that investigators have not yet established the cause of the incident.
“EMCO is the most professionally working company in the ammunition production industry. I am convinced that the cause of the explosion is not due to the omissions of the employees and management,” Iliev told NOVA News.
Iliev discussed two main explanations for the incident: the accidental ignition of ammunition and deliberate arson. He said spontaneous ignition accounts for about 4% of incidents at ammunition storage facilities worldwide, but determining whether it occurred in a particular case can be extremely difficult because much of the evidence is destroyed in an explosion.
The expert said spontaneous ignition can occur when old ammunition charges are stored at high temperatures. He added that the EMCO facility was not recently constructed but was designed and built with careful consideration of the requirements for such operations.
