Early indications suggest improper firefighting techniques may have been a major causative or contributing factor, specifically, application of water to fight fire in the presence of calcium carbide, which reacts with water to produce acetylene, the explosion of which may have then triggered a secondary, larger, detonation of nearby ammonium nitrate.

Spraying water around unidentified-chemical storage areas is often a Very Bad Thing. When these disasters occur, sometimes the chemicals were stored, handled or (un)labeled illegally or improperly, regulation or enforcement was inadequate or absent, or firefighter/first responder training, leadership, SOPs, or fire pre-planning and risk assessment were inferior, or, more commonly, there was some combination of these factors at work.

Ports and harbors are unique points for both concentration and risk exposure of vast quantities of hazardous materials, including toxic, highly flammable and explosive material with multiple potential combinations and reactions. Ports and harbors are also often adjacent to population centers.

See, e.g., the Texas City explosion that was America's deadliest industrial accident; the Phoenix City explosion; the West Loch explosion; and the Halifax explosion in 1917 that killed 2000 people.