At 2:25 p.m. on Thursday, November 27, an explosive device, possibly homemade fireworks, was detonated by remote control on the Egan Junior High School track by a bomb squad and the Los Altos Police Department.

Smoke from the explosion rose higher than sixty feet in the air and obliterated the sandbags that surrounded the device. There was a small shock wave coupled with a deafening boom that was heard more than a mile away. There were no injuries as a result of the detonation.

“It was huge, and totally unexpected,” sophomore Audrey Cole said. “I thought it’d be a small puff, but it was amazing.”

The explosive belonged to a man named Troy Mulder, who was pulled over by the police the morning of November 27 for a traffic violation at 4470 El Camino Real, Los Altos.

Mulder had been driving with a suspended license, and during his arrest, the police found the device.

The explosive was deemed too unstable to be driven back to LAPD headquarters through residential Los Altos, and so was taken to the nearest open field at Egan. There was no damage to Egan’s campus as a result of the explosion.

It is not known whether Mulder intended the explosives to be used for malicious purposes. He is now being held at the Santa Clara County Main Jail for possession of an explosive device, driving with a suspended license and driving with an open container of alcohol.

Approximately thirty people gathered to watch the explosion from a safe distance in the parking lot, most of whom were neighbors of Egan School who had been alerted by a phone call from the police.