The chemical mixture inside the bag ignited after firefighters had loaded it into a drum for disposal, sending flames some 10 feet into the air, police said.
No one was injured in the explosion Sunday night in the residential neighborhood just blocks from the University of Evansville campus.
The bag was tossed from a pickup truck that police officers had chased for several minutes after they became suspicious of a group of men congregating in a hotel parking lot. The batch of meth had gone bad, police said, and its resulting byproduct was volatile.
``It could very easily have caught the house on fire,'' said Detective Jerry Tooley of the Joint Drug Task Force.
Richard Allen Stewart, 41, of Henderson, Ky., was being held in the Vanderburgh County Jail on charges of dealing methamphetamine, possession of precursors, reckless driving and child neglect. Stewart's passenger, his 16-year-old son, also was arrested.
Officers reported that during the chase, Stewart nearly hit a parked car and drove through several alleys. The two were arrested a short foot chase, police said.
