MILTON, Wash. (AP) — A bomb squad destroyed a suspicious device found near the drive-through window of a Burger King restaurant Sunday afternoon in this city east of Tacoma.

Unsure whether the 18-inch cylinder contained explosives, police shut down nearby Meridian Avenue and evacuated the restaurant and every building within 300 yards, police said.

The Federal Way bomb squad moved the device to a storage area behind the restaurant and destroyed it about three hours after it was discovered.

Witnesses said the explosion could be heard from blocks away.

Milton Police Chief Steve McKeen said investigators determined the device was not an explosive.

"They said there were no explosives in it itself, but they don't know or can't determine at this time if it was a dummy designed to look like a bomb or something else that just by its sheer makeup would have resembled some sort of explosive," McKeen told KIRO-TV.