(West Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion/ Wiki Commons)

The announcement was made shortly after a paramedic who responded to the factory explosion was arrest for possession of pipe bomb parts. But officials refuse to say if the arrested was connected to the fertilizer plant explosion. 

“This disaster has severely impacted the community of West, and we want to ensure that no stone goes unturned and that all the facts related to this incident are uncovered,” The New York Times reported that Mr. McCraw said in a statement on Friday.

From The New York Times: 

 

Earlier Friday, Bryce Reed, 31, an emergency medical technician who has said he helped evacuate people after the April 17 blast, was taken into federal custody, according to the United States attorney’s office.

Mr. Reed appeared briefly in federal court in Waco on Friday but did not enter a plea, the authorities said.

An affadavit sworn out by Douglas J. Kunze, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the authorities had found the parts of a pipe bomb, including potassium nitrate powder, which is used in fertilizers and gunpowder.

Though Mr. Reed was not in possession of the materials, he admitted to having possessed them, according to the affadavit.

Investigators have said the explosion was caused by ammonium nitrate, which was being stored at the fertilizer plant, but have not said whether a fire that preceded the blast had ignited the chemical. Ammonium nitrate, which is commonly used as a fertilizer, is difficult to ignite if handled carefully and properly stored, but it has also been used in a number of terrorist attacks, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

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