By Mark Woolsey

Smyrna firefighters battled a house fire with an unexpected twist this week-the presence of  volatile chemicals.

Smyrna Emergency Management officials say fire crews were sent to a home on Debra Drive Wednesday evening to find flames in the basement, extinguishing them. They say they returned later with a thermal imaging camera and found no hidden fire.

However they were back on the scene at 1:20 a.m. Thursday as the blaze had somehow rekindled, with flames erupting through the roof.

Crews noticed unusual “fire behavior and appearance” and found that oxidizing chemicals were stored in the home, primarily ammonium perchlorate, which a resident said he used in his model rocket hobby. Firefighters pulled the volatile chemical out and extinguished the blaze.

Smyrna Emergency Management says nobody was home at the time  the fire broke out and nobody was hurt, but two firefighters were treated at the scene for exhaustion. There was no word on the cause of the fire or the extent of damage to the home.

The NIH(National Institutes if Health) National Library of Medicine said the compound doesn’t readily burn but will catch fire if it comes into contact with combustible material. They said that it can cause thyroid problems.Smyrna officials called it a  powerful oxidizer (where an element combines with oxygen) and said it is used in pyrotechnics