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PARKERSBURG - The Wood County Sheriff's Department is investigating a suspicious incendiary device found on vacant property Monday evening on Blennerhassett Heights Road near the Ohio River.
The West Virginia State Police Bomb Squad used a water cannon to neutralize the device, which Wood County Sheriff Rick Woodyard described as a little bit larger than a bread box.
"It was an incendiary device that the trigger mechanism was sunlight," the sheriff said Tuesday morning. "Sunlight would ignite the box."
A post on the sheriff's office Facebook page said deputies were dispatched at 6:28 p.m. Monday to the 1500 block of Blennerhassett Heights Road. The area was cordoned off, and the bomb squad and Blennerhassett Volunteer Fire Department were asked to respond as well. Camden Clark EMS was also on scene.
"The device is located on a vacant piece of property near a vacant house," Woodyard said Monday evening. "We're not really sure what it is."
Other houses were about 100 feet away, he said.
The box was x-rayed and its contents were determined to be "highly suspicious," a subsequent Facebook post from the sheriff's office said.
Around 9:30 p.m., Woodyard said the package had been breached with a water blast.
Remote robots were used to further examine it, and once it was determined there were no explosives inside, the water cannon was used to neutralize its contents, he said Tuesday morning.
The road reopened around 10:20 p.m. Monday.
Woodyard said the incident is being investigated by the department's detective bureau and anyone who saw anything or has information related to it is asked to contact them at 304-834-3909.
Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.