A lamp explodes or gets knocked over; the oiled paper walls burst into a blaze; the blaze spreads right and left, and sweeps away a few streets, or a suburb of a city, or a whole village.
"Peeps at Many Lands: Japan"
John Finnemore
Three seconds after this is pulled out the bomb explodes-and the farther the thrower can remove himself from the bomb in that time the better.
"Italy at War and the Allies in the West"
E. Alexander Powell
It were better to say that a powder detonates when it all explodes at the same instant.
"In the Track of the Troops"
R.M. Ballantyne