PHOTOS: BLAST, BLAZE KILL 17 AT ROSEBURG,” read the headline on the front page of The Register-Guard on August 7, 1959. The official number of dead was later lowered to 14 as medical examiners were able to enter the area in the days after the blast. More than 120 others were injured. An eight-block area on the fringe of the downtown was devastated. The event became known simply as “The Blast.”Subsequent reports estimated 300 businesses within a 30-block radius sustained some damage from the explosion. Damages were estimated between $10 million to $12 million. The cause was determined to be an early morning fire in the Dent-Gerretsen building on Pine Street that spread to a parked truck loaded with two tons of dynamite and more than four tons of ammonium nitrate.