DuPage FP police station alarm set off by blank shotgun blast

The DuPage County Forest Preserve police station on Naperville Road in Wheaton briefly was evacuated after an employee fired blank rounds from a shotgun and set off a fire alarm.

Lt. Howard B. Oller, spokesman for the forest preserve police, said the district’s range master was inside a reinforced ammunition vault Tuesday working with a shotgun he thought contained a dummy round, with no gun powder or projectiles. Oller would not name the range master.

Instead, Oller said, the weapon contained a blank round, which includes gun powder but no projectile.

“There is a sensor in the vault, a smoke detector, and because it is a very confined space ... the gunpowder set off the fire alarm,” Oller said.

The Wheaton Fire Department responded and the building was evacuated for about 15 minutes until officials confirmed it was an “erroneous alarm,” Oller said.

No one was injured and no property was damaged, he said. The range master will not face any disciplinary action, he said.