Good question. I’ve never had the opportunity to work with dynamite, but as I recall the active ingredient is nitroglycerine in an absorbant base with stabilizers. Another question is what exactly was the “wick” she lit? How are the caps normally activated? I’m assuming not with the <1” wick you’d normally find on a candle; so how long was the wick on this “candle”?

Still, a stick of dynamite is not something of which most people have any experience, so her not recognizing it for what it was is almost understandable. That said, Montanero’s terminology may have been correct — idiot, both the victim and the idiot who left it for her to find.