Teemu
Hero
One of my favorite 4e absurdities was that you could take a room, fill it with dynamite, padded with gun-cotton, soaked in nitroglycerine, and hit it with a Fireball, and nothing would happen. Unlike all previous editions, they left out the text that said it affected everything else in the area. as written it affects "targets" in the area, with "Targets" defined as "living creatures". So the explosives are perfectly safe.
And in 3e the tubes of dynamite and explosives would be unaffected if creatures were holding them, since fireball damages creatures and unattended objects, and items creatures are carrying can only be damaged if you roll a nat 1 on the saving throw. And even then there's an order in which the items are damaged.