Some people just want to watch the world burn. Others are happy to look at chimney demolition videos online.
Controlled Demolition, Inc., an implosion subcontractor based in Phoenix, Maryland, maintains a YouTube channel dedicated to its most telegenic acts of destruction. The company conducts controlled demolitions of many kinds of structures, including disused hotels, condos, radio towers, and bridges. And though it's entertaining to watch a concrete monolith collapse like a waterfall, nothing quite beats the "Timberrrrrrr!"-tastic fun factor of seeing giant chimneys come crashing down.
Here are a few highlights from Controlled Demolition, Inc.'s chimney destruction repertoire.
These 165-foot-tall brick stacks in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, were dynamited to death in December 2016:
Here are the final moments of a pair of 300-foot-tall, reinforced concrete chimneys at the Grainger Generating Station in Conway, South Carolina. They met their end in February 2016.
And below is the deeply satisfying demise of a 250-foot-tall structure at APS Four Corners Power Plant in Fruitland, New Mexico. It took place in July 2016. (While, technically, this reinforced concrete tower is a windscreen, not a chimney, it is sufficiently cylindrical and visually impressive enough to include in this roundup.)
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