This Independence Day, don’t get burned: Let the professionals set off the fireworks

Inde­pen­dence Day is almost here, and as the cel­e­bra­tion of Amer­i­ca’s found­ing has inched clos­er, fed­er­al, state and local offi­cials have become increas­ing­ly vocal about the dan­gers posed by set­ting off fire­works, par­tic­u­lar­ly with con­di­tions so dry this year. Author­i­ties are emphat­i­cal­ly urg­ing peo­ple to go see a com­mu­ni­ty spon­sored, pro­fes­sion­al­ly run fire­works show instead of set­ting off Roman can­dles, sparklers, and spin­ners in a back­yard, park­ing lot, or neigh­bor­hood ballfield.

This is excel­lent advice that every­one should fol­low. Every year, lives are lost, severe injuries sus­tained, fires start­ed and prop­er­ty destroyed as a con­se­quence of peo­ple fool­ing around with fire­works dur­ing the Fourth of July. Take this state­ment to heart: The cheap thrills sim­ply aren’t worth the risks.

Here are four rea­sons why you should get your fire­works fix at a cel­e­bra­tion like the Seafair Fam­i­ly Fourth instead of in the back­yard or in a vacant lot somewhere.

Fireworks cause fires

Let’s start with the obvious.

Set­ting off fire­works can cause fires that can get out of hand very quick­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly when con­di­tions are dry and hot, as they are this year. Out of con­trol fires can result in the rapid destruc­tion of prop­er­ty, as we have seen recent­ly in Wenatchee with the Sleepy Hol­low fire. That par­tic­u­lar fire was­n’t ignit­ed by fire­works, but fire­works make an excel­lent igni­tion source for dan­ger­ous fires.

The King Coun­ty fire mar­shal reports that in King Coun­ty alone last year, fire agen­cies respond­ed to near­ly two hun­dred fire calls with eighty-two of them relat­ed to fire­works, as report­ed in the 2014 Wash­ing­ton State Fire Mar­shal report.

Just today, a brush­fire was start­ed in Puyallup by peo­ple who were stu­pid­ly and care­less­ly set­ting off fire­works with­out regard for the con­se­quences. For­tu­nate­ly, fire­fight­ers were able to put it out. Fire inves­ti­ga­tors know that par­tic­u­lar fire was caused by fire­works because of the evi­dence left behind at the scene.

And on Wednes­day, two men in Lyn­nwood were arrest­ed after they ille­gal­ly set off fire­works that start­ed a grass fire.

Fireworks can injure or kill

Improp­er­ly ignit­ed fire­works can cause seri­ous injury or even death to unsus­pect­ing rev­el­ers who are only intent on hav­ing a good time. This is a prob­lem that’s been get­ting sub­stan­tial­ly worse over the past few years.

Nexs­tar Broad­cast­ing’s Austin Lewis reports:

Thou­sands of Amer­i­cans are head­ed out to buy fire­works this Fourth of July week­end. Last year, more than 10,000 peo­ple were injured in fire­works-relat­ed inci­dents and 11 peo­ple died, an increase in deaths from the pre­vi­ous year.

The CPSC [Con­sumer Prod­uct Safe­ty Com­mis­sion] says chil­dren under 15 had the high­est rate of injury of any age group, account­ing for 40 per­cent of patients. The hands and face are the most com­mon­ly injured body parts. Accord­ing to a nation­al study, eye injuries from fire­works have dou­bled in the past three years.

The CPSC con­duct­ed a pub­lic safe­ty demon­stra­tion on the Nation­al Mall in the Dis­trict of Colum­bia to show just how dan­ger­ous fire­works can be when improp­er­ly han­dled. Watch the hor­ri­fy­ing video your­self right here:

The sober­ing sto­ries just keep on com­ing. Only two days ago, a twelve-year old boy had to be trans­port­ed to Har­borview Med­ical Cen­ter’s spe­cial­ized burn unit after he was bad­ly burned by fire­works near an Auburn fire­works stand.

Fireworks cause noise pollution

When you choose to set off fire­works late at night in a back­yard, park, asphalt lot, the grounds of a school, or some oth­er pub­lic or pri­vate open space, you’re con­tribut­ing to ram­pant noise pol­lu­tion that pre­vents oth­er peo­ple near­by from get­ting a good night’s sleep or relax­ing. You also become a major source of anx­i­ety to near­by ani­mals… from dogs to cats to hors­es and rabbits.

If the pro­fes­sion­als were the only ones set­ting off fire­works, Inde­pen­dence Day noise pol­lu­tion would be kept to a man­age­able min­i­mum and with­in a rea­son­able time­frame, because pro­fes­sion­al fire­works dis­plays usu­al­ly take place between 10 and 11 PM on the Fourth, and don’t typ­i­cal­ly run for longer than twen­ty minutes.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, when peo­ple through­out a giv­en neigh­bor­hood choose to alter­nate­ly set off fire­works for hours and hours, it cre­ates a nui­sance that sim­ply won’t end. Many peo­ple who keep pets dis­like the Fourth of July because of the anx­i­ety the dis­charge of fire­works caus­es to their com­pan­ions, and thus, to them.

Many vet­er­ans, mean­while, can be both­ered by the booms, snaps, and crack­les, because the noise can aggra­vate their post trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der.

Keep in mind that what you con­sid­er to be hav­ing a good time may be giv­ing some­one else a bad time. Your neigh­bors will thank you if you choose to be a fire­works spec­ta­tor instead of a wannabe pyrotech­nic wiz­ard try­ing to impress fam­i­ly or friends in the backyard.

Spent fireworks create litter

Every year, a lot of waste is unnec­es­sar­i­ly cre­at­ed as a result of fire­works being dis­charged on pub­lic and pri­vate prop­er­ty. Worse, many peo­ple don’t even col­lect their spent fire­works for prop­er dis­pos­al. This cre­ates unnec­es­sary cleanup work that is often paid for at tax­pay­er expense. KCBD of Lub­bock, Texas reports:

Manuel Delacruz knows all too well the mess fire­works can leave behind. “You can see the grass here,” Delacruz said, motion­ing a lot across the street of their stand. “July 5th? You won’t see no grass. You’ll see a bunch of paper and trash.”

As a TxDOT employ­ee, Delacruz usu­al­ly has had to deal with the cel­e­bra­tion aftermath.

“We have to come by and pick up all that trash,” he said, “and that takes away from employ­ees who can be doing pot­holes, doing edge repairs or some­thing like that.”

This no small feat, Delacruz said, and it costs tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars. “We come out here in these big, one-ton trucks with a lot of trash bags and we fill it up,” he said, “and we fill them up so high with trash we have to take mul­ti­ple trips back to our yard just to get rid of the trash.”

This isn’t just a prob­lem in Texas. It’s a prob­lem every­where, includ­ing here in the Pacif­ic North­west. As Delacruz tells KCBD, if you are going to set off fire­works, at least have the decen­cy to clean up after your­self. As they say in the Lone Star State, Don’t mess with Texas. Same goes for every­where else.

On the oth­er hand, if you choose not to buy and set off fire­works, you won’t have to wor­ry about scroung­ing around in the dark try­ing to scoop up casings.

Fireworks are environmentally destructive

Along those same lines, here’s a bonus rea­son not to go out and set off fire­works: they’re harm­ful to the envi­ron­ment. They cause air pol­lu­tion:

Envi­ron­men­tal­ly, fire­works are a dis­as­ter. The smoke con­sists of fine tox­ic dusts, a par­tic­u­late mat­ter that enters the lungs, threat­en­ing those with asth­ma or mul­ti­ple chem­i­cal sen­si­tiv­i­ty. They can also con­tain a mix­ture of sul­fur-coal com­pounds, traces of heavy met­als, and oth­er tox­ic chem­i­cals or gas­es. The com­bus­tion cloud can con­tain ozone, sul­fur diox­ide and nitric oxide. Smoke from con­sumer fire­works is released at ground lev­el, mak­ing inhala­tion more like­ly than with pro­fes­sion­al dis­plays. Fire­works pro­duce green­house gas­es, includ­ing car­bon diox­ide and ozone.

And water pol­lu­tion:

Fire­works are often shot over bod­ies of water, in the case of Belling­ham, into the bay or parts of Lake What­com, the drink­ing water source for the city. Spent sparklers, match­es and trash are tossed into the water after use. Before the ban one could see fire­works going off all around Belling­ham Bay, land­ing in the water.

In the morn­ing beach­es were lit­tered with debris. Res­i­dents on Lake What­com shoot them off their docks. With parts of the lake out­side city lim­its, a coun­ty­wide ban on fire­works may be the only way to com­plete­ly stop it.

And fire­works can also be a haz­ard to birds.

So there you have it: Five good rea­sons to leave the fire­works to the pro­fes­sion­als this Fourth of July. Have a great Inde­pen­dence Day, and stay safe!