http://vho.org/GB/Books/trr/1.html#1.2 >The residents of a house in Los Angeles, California, had to learn this in a quite painful way shortly before Christmas 1947. They had hired the Guarantee Fumigation Company to destroy the termites which threatened to eat up the wooden structure. The pest controllers, however, were apparently not very competent, because when using a container of pressurized HCN to fill the house, which had been wrapped up like a Christmas present, they exceeded safe limits and pumped in too much gas. (Fig. 2).[15] Due to unknown reasons, the mixture of air and HCN, which can be highly explosive under certain circumstances, ignited during the fumigation. The resulting explosion destroyed the entire dwelling.[16]