1/5 The gate of the fireworks storage in Ulicoten (photo: Collin Beijk).
Tens of thousands of kilos of illegal fireworks are stored in Ulicoten every year. This takes place at a heavily secured complex of the Government Domains for Movable Affairs. This is the only place in the Netherlands where the police, judiciary and other enforcement services can store illegal fireworks. This is necessary because the explosive material serves as evidence for the judiciary before it is destroyed.
Not a week goes by without a specialized transport company delivering illegal fireworks to the Domeinen Roerende Zaken (DRZ) in Ulicoten. It’s about banned, but professionally made stuff. Fireworks that you put together yourself are usually immediately rendered harmless by the Explosives Clearance Service and do not go to Ulicoten.
The complex is located in the middle of the meadows near the Belgian border. Security is tight with high fences, cameras and staff keeping a close eye on things. The entrance gates are not inferior to those of a military base. That is not very surprising, because the site in Ulicoten used to be a defense ammunition storage.
bunkers
The complex has a total of 24 bunkers of different sizes and for different uses. For safety reasons, certain types of fireworks may not be placed together. There is a sprinkler system in all bunkers in which fireworks are stored to extinguish any starting fire.
There are mainly class 1.1G fireworks in the bunkers in Ulicoten. “This is the most dangerous class in fireworks, which also poses a risk of mass explosion,” explains a DRZ spokeswoman. Such a mass explosion is an explosion in which the entire charge goes into the air at practically the same time.
Dozens of tons
The bunkers in Ulicoten can hold 90 tons of the heaviest illegal fireworks. “In practice, this is not the case, because fireworks are taken away for destruction after investigation by firework experts from the police,” says the DRZ spokeswoman. The service does not want to say how many fireworks are stored on average at the complex for safety reasons.
This year is not even over yet and the counter is already at 89 tons of seized illegal fireworks in the Netherlands. Almost all of that explosive material has been in Ulicoten for some time. Who to the’ fireworks barometer‘ looks from the Public Prosecution Service sees that huge amounts have been captured by the investigative services in recent years.
2017: 40,483 kilograms
2018: 56,525 kilograms
2019: 61,429 kilograms
2020: 122,815 kilograms
2021: 205,904 kilograms
Safety
There are no houses or businesses in a radius of about 900 meters around the storage facility in Ulicoten. Only a handful of experts at the Domains and police are authorized to work in the bunkers. Even taking photos and making video images is done with highly specialized equipment that cannot cause an explosion or fire.
If things go wrong in one of the bunkers and a mass explosion of fireworks occurs, there is no need to immediately fear a scenario such as the fireworks disaster in Enschede. The storage facilities are old NATO bunkers with reinforced walls surrounded by earth walls and a relatively loose roof that immediately flies off. There are all kinds of warning signs and extinguishing systems on the complex.
Two million
The storage of illegal fireworks in Ulicoten costs the taxpayer two million euros annually, according to the Domeinen Roerende Zaken service. That’s just to keep the complex running and secure. On top of that are millions of euros spent on police investigations, specialist fireworks transports and the destruction of the explosive material abroad.
