PEPCON manufactured ammonium perchlorate, the oxidizer that makes solid rocket fuel burn. Along with nearby Kerr-McGee, the Henderson facility was one of only two American producers of the compound. Their product powered the Space Shuttle's solid rocket boosters, Trident submarine-launched missiles, and Patriot defense systems. After the Challenger disaster grounded the shuttle fleet for 32 months starting in 1986, the government instructed PEPCON to store excess perchlorate on-site in aluminum bins—material that would eventually fuel future shuttle launches. By May 1988, the plant held an enormous quantity of highly reactive oxidizer. A high-pressure natural gas pipeline, installed in 1956 and characterized in its original invoice as "limited service," ran directly beneath the facility.

The industrial zone southeast of Las Vegas made for strange bedfellows. PEPCON sat less than two miles from Kerr-McGee's similar facility, which itself suffered blast damage in the explosion. A marshmallow factory—Kidd & Company—operated nearby. A gravel quarry worked the land to the west. The closest homes were roughly two miles away, a distance that seemed safe until 4.4 million pounds of ammonium perchlorate began to detonate in sequence. The Clark County Fire Department would later note that investigators were not permitted entry to the site until 13 days after the event, as the Arson Division maintained control during that period.

The Henderson fire chief watched the fireball swell as he approached. Dozens of workers fled on foot across the desert. The initial fire triggered a chain reaction of explosions, each larger than the last. The final blast registered on seismographs, recorded by the USGS as a seismic event. Windows shattered in a radius that stretched for miles. Fifteen firefighters were injured responding. Two workers died. Another 372 people required medical treatment. Hospitals activated disaster plans; four hours later, the fire department advised them to stand down. The damage estimate reached $100 million. The Las Vegas Valley, accustomed to spectacle, had witnessed something beyond entertainment.

PEPCON carried only $1 million in liability insurance, a fraction of the destruction it caused. The parent company quickly distanced itself, renaming the subsidiary first to PEPCON Production, Inc., then to Western Electrochemical Co. The crater filled in. The desert reclaimed what remained. Today, the former blast site is a commercial development near the Valley Auto Mall, home to car dealerships and a university campus. Nothing marks the spot where rockets nearly met their end before reaching space. The explosion lives on primarily in television documentaries—Blueprint for Disaster, Shockwave, Engineering Disasters—and in a video game: Fallout: New Vegas features a fictional company called REPCONN headquartered near the same location, a dark joke that only locals understand.

Multiple agencies investigated. The United States Fire Administration compiled reports. The Department of Labor challenged the fire department's conclusions about cause and origin. What emerged was a portrait of accumulated risk: aging infrastructure, concentrated hazardous materials, insufficient safety margins. The Challenger connection looms largest—had the shuttle not been grounded, the perchlorate would have launched into orbit rather than accumulated in a desert storage lot. One disaster enabled another. Henderson rebuilt, Las Vegas expanded, and the valley floor absorbed another secret. From the air, nothing distinguishes this patch of suburban development from any other. The explosion that shook a city left no permanent scar on the land.