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And I suppose most fireworks injuries/accidents go unreported.
Pretty much by definition very minor injuries far outnumber direct deaths. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking slip and fall, bicycle crash, gunshot, or fireworks.
So vastly many people get a minor burn on a finger from picking up a still-hot sparkler wire. And those go unreported; all of them. Rather fewer (like just a handful nationwide) blow their hands off with homemade “fireworks” AKA pipe bombs. Pretty much all of those get reported. And so on in between.
Speaking of reporting …
Here in sunny SoFL I heard / saw my first booms last night July 3 at about 9:30. I live in a highrise next to a golf course. Somebody had snuck out onto the golf course to launch about 20-30 seconds of skyrockets. All of which burst right at my balcony height as I was sitting indoors looking out. Kinda surprising. Incoming!
I heard a couple booms from farther off around 10pm, but that was it.
The weather was warm but dry; pretty ideal for outdoor partying and fireworks launching.
I’m happy to report that Canada Day here this year was about as relatively mild, explosive-wise, as VIctoria Day had been. Mostly a bunch of booms on the evening itself, and a few random ones the next day, and that seems to have been about it.
I just keep telling myself it will mostly all be over after Sunday. Keep repeating that.
I’m surprised by how few I’ve heard inside the DC Beltway. It’s cooled down from the 100 degrees we had today and yesterday. They’re illegal, but they happen anyway. As I type, I just heard a few in the distance.
Here in Colorado Springs, the ongoing (3+ days) smoke haze in the air from southern Colorado burning to the ground seems to have kept things quiet. Individual pops after sundown, which given our tinder status is a blessing. I mean - the sky is RED with the haze. The fire hazard is so high that non-gas grilling was banned this year.
The booms are starting in Sacramento, CA, almost an hour and a half before sunset (grump). The cats’ choices of refuge include the walk-in closet. I don’t usually want them in there because I worry about someone getting locked in (they’re both orange, and I’m not sure the brain cell’s location is consistently known to either), but they may well want to be able to burrow under spare blankets and such. Unusual occasion, so special allowance being made, and I do have a small piece of luggage acting as doorstop to hopefully prevent lock-ins.
I’m hearing some booms now. Fortunately our dog is sleeping on the couch and doesn’t seem to care. I’m sure he’ll startle when he’s out peeing, though.
But note:
A department spokesperson said such fires are not unexpected and are why officials keep crowds at a distance during fireworks.
Not even full dark yet, and the “air quality” outside my apartment leaves much to be desired (ventured out to make sure none of the unnecessarily loud crap was being set off in my parking lot). Something out there just scared two cats into flat-out sprints for the safety of the bedroom, which is on the other side of the apartment from the worst of it. Gonna be a rough night.
Come on baby light my fire.
Try to set the night on fire.
We had a major storm come thru last night - lightning ignited one house and another house had a tree crush it. But it all calmed a bit before 10. Then someone in my otherwise quiet neighborhood decided it was boom time - setting off many very loud explosive devices till after 11. Luckily, it quieted once he/she was done, but I wondered about the family across the street with the newborn.
I hope everyone has gotten it out of their collective systems.
Like the day after Thanksgiving, there are always plenty of leftovers on July 5th.
About half a dozen fires started by fireworks around here- in a high fire risk area.
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/firefighters-battle-fourth-of-july-blazes-around-los-angeles/
Firefighters battled multiple Fourth of July fires around the Los Angeles area Saturday night.
When will they ever learn?
I assume that’s a purely rhetorical question. The only real solution is fireworks laws that are meaningfully enforced. Otherwise, there’s a new idiot born every minute who will grow up to perpetuate the mayhem if he doesn’t kill himself or blow his fingers off first .
I knew my normally mild mannered wife had had enough of the neighborhood fireworks when I heard her mutter last night, “I hope somebody loses a hand over there (the next street over).” Only ‘Safe and Sane’ fireworks are legal here, nothing that flies or explodes, but on the next block, they’ve had large airburst fireworks for years on the 4th and NYE. As luck would have it, about 10 minutes after she made her comment, she saw a Sheriff’s patrol car headed that way, and things got quieter in the neighborhood.
Plus this:
Birch Bay Fan Club
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Good morning Birch Bay! Or, I should say “morning after”… if you’re local I bet many of you have already been down to the beach helping the cleanup effort. In other local chat groups there’s a lot of division over the impact of July 4 celebrations here that seem to be growing more massive every year. There are those who say we need to do better and limit how much fireworks activity is allowed while others say “it’s fine, we’ve been doing it for years, it always gets cleaned up!”  I’ll wager that most of the cleanup is done not by the visitors and fireworks users but local volunteers. Yes it’s true there are dozens of people out on the beach this morning and county crews are already passing through, picking up organized piles at the roadside. Myself and a couple of other beachcombers spent nearly an hour on a pile like this, picking through seaweed for all the tiny debris and carting the big stuff up to the road… and that was just one of dozens of piles like this photo. Even when it’s all picked up, much of it has already been pulled away by the tide or remains embedded in the beach. If you’ve been out helping today, kudos to you and everyone who’s lent a hand. There’s got to be a better way to keep our place pristine and still enjoy the tradition