Magnesium fluoride laser emission has been produced from the chemical reaction of explosively generated magnesium jets and fluorine. The temporal and spectral characteristics of these laser pulses are similar to those reported earlier for the MgF exploding wire laser, i.e., pulse duration of 1–3 &mgr;s, and wavelength > 11&mgr;m, which suggests a purely chemical pumping mechanism for both of these metal atom oxidation lasers.