Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
HILL AIR FORCE BASE — If you hear a loud boom in the coming months, it could be coming from the Utah Test and Training Range.
The Air Force’s large detonation season is scheduled to begin this week, depending on weather conditions. The detonations will continue through October and take place two to three times a week, according to Hill Air Force Base.
Rocket motors and solid propellant for Air Force and military ballistic missiles are destroyed during the detonations at the Utah Test and Training Range in the west desert. Air Force officials said UTTR is the only location in the U.S. capable of destroying the missile motors.
Several times in 2014, sound from the detonations reportedly traveled 45 miles across the Great Salt Lake to HAFB and other nearby communities.
“We believe weather conditions were conducive to amplifying the noise of those detonations and our sound modeling did not accurately predict sound levels along the Wasatch Front,” HAFB air quality program manager Glenn Palmer said in a press release. “We plan to collect additional sound monitoring data this year to modify our model so it more closely reflects actual conditions here.”
Over 140 rocket motors were destroyed by detonations at UTTR in 2014, according to HAFB.
