By Phill Courtney
Every year, around the Fourth of July, my wife and I, along with the many dogs we’ve had, must go through those nerve-shattering sieges of blasts in the night, supposedly celebrating the independence of our country. Now I say “around,” because this annual ordeal isn’t just on the Fourth, but, lately, seems to have started much earlier than that, while often extending a number of days afterwards, becoming particularly noticeable starting in 2020—the first year of COVID—when statistics show that sales of fireworks basically doubled.
Of course, we know that we’re not the only pet owners who’ve had to endure these terrible trials, and while, yes, in the words of that old aphorism: misery loves company—that doesn’t mean it still isn’t misery.
This year was a little different, though, not because there were less fireworks, but because I wasn’t here this July 4th to comfort our two canines. A long-time friend, whom I’ve come to regard as my “honorary kid sister” since I’ve known her since she was twelve, had asked me (and my wife) if I could spend a week with her in Ohio, and the tickets she offered to pay for were cheaper if I was willing to fly on the 4th. I was, which resulted in a “first” for my life: seeing many of the sparkling shows from above as we descended into Columbus.
This doesn’t mean, though, that I avoided the siege entirely, since a number of what seemed to be M-80 explosions went off in our neighborhood before I’d left. Meanwhile, as for the evening of the 4th itself, my wife was home dealing with a hysterical female husky, who, she told me later, slipped into our shower to hide, then tore up the curtain with her paws. Thankfully, though, our male lab did somewhat better this yar.
Now I tell you all this as a way to bolster what I’m asserting here: that it’s way past time to phase out fireworks in favor of the several alternatives that are finally coming into fashion as many of the “negatives” associated with both professional firework shows and those “safe and sane” home versions (which, many times, are neither), continue to make the news.
Yes, as we’ve seen above, and as many of us know first-hand, fireworks and pets just don’t go together, especially when they run off and are killed in traffic. But there’s also the human toll to consider as well, with many people dying in accidents every year.
For instance, firework factories ignite on a fairly regular basis, with hundreds of deaths in diverse countries throughout the world, many in India and Mexico, and while we’d like to think that this is basically only a problem in countries with lax safety standards, it’s a problem here too throughout the U.S.
One of the most recent examples happened in the Sacramento area just this past July 1st, when an unlicensed fireworks warehouse, the ironically name Devastating Pyrotechnics, went up in flames, taking seven employees along with it, while a house storing fireworks (again illegally) in Ontario in March of 2021, went up, killing two on the site, with millions of dollars of damages to surrounding homes.
Another one of the more bizarre local firework incidents happened in September of 1987 in Rialto and I was personally involved in the extent that I heard it. But what set that explosion apart was this: it was not an accident.
It happened in the early morning hours while I was sleeping at my apartment complex in the eastern part of Riverside. Suddenly there was a jarring air blast outside that reverberated impressively throughout the entire auto courtyard below.
Only later, after I’d checked the news, did I discover what had happened. Apparently, a man, who worked at a fireworks factory in Rialto, was experiencing some dissatisfaction in his relationship with a woman and decided to show her just how dissatisfied he was by “going out with a bang”—a bang she’d never forget.
So, he called her and told her to look out the window at a certain time in order to see a sight showing her just how unhappy he was. Then he set off the entire factory and that was the sound I heard.
Fortunately, unlike a lot of men, he didn’t feel the need to kill his lady-friend first in a murder/suicide, nor involve anyone else in his dramatic act (the factory was empty at the time), so it was just him and that memorable sight for his girlfriend.
Shortly after that, and partly because I’d heard it at my location some 15 miles away, my then girlfriend (who was asleep next to me at the time but didn’t hear it) and I were curious, so we drove over to see the site of the explosion for ourselves (with her two young children in tow). Fortunately, it was an area that was mostly industrial, with just a few scattered homes, so the neighborhood damage was minimal. Most memorable for me were the large chunks of concrete that had been blasted sky high and then fell into the surrounding streets.
Besides these incidents, there’s also been a long, sad list of firework disasters at, among others, nightclubs; religious ceremonies; and wedding celebrations. In 2013 a nightclub firework accident killed 242 in Brazil; while unlicensed fireworks at a Hindu temple in India set off a conflagration that killed 111 in 2016. In the U.S., one of our most infamous was the 2003 Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island that killed 100 partiers when pyrotechnics adjacent to the rock band performing, ignited flammable acoustic ceiling panels.
Recently, one the ghastliest incidents of all (perhaps because it was captured on video) was the September 2023 fire at a wedding in Iraq when yet more fireworks set to shoot towards the ceiling as the couple took their first dance, immediately ignited flammable decorations displayed above. Although the couple survived, what should have been their joyous day was forever tainted by their 107 guests who did not.
Besides all these spectacular incidents, the many rather mundane injuries and some deaths that result from “safe and sane” firework accidents each year should be mentioned, as well as the wildfires they occasionally set off. In August of 2017, my wife and I had just driven through the Columbia River Gorge on our way to see the total eclipse of the sun that August, when a knuckleheaded 15-year-old and his friends playing with fireworks during that summer’s “no burn ban” (one of whom videotaped it, leading to his arrest) set off a wildfire several weeks later that burned for three months and cost millions to contain.
Which is not to say that I didn’t have my own knuckleheaded days as a teenager myself. For several years we went over from Corona to some family friends in Fontana (where fireworks were legal) to set off our own, including, of course, sparklers, Piccolo Petes and other devices, some of which went off unexpectantly one time in a bucket, causing much excitement, while on another Fourth, some other celebrants across a dry field, set it on fire. Fortunately, the Fontana fire department was ready.
Another memorable occasion was the time I and a friend, who’d managed to come into possession of an M-80, decided to drive up into an unpopulated canyon above Upland and set it off. We then quickly ran, and I’ll never forget how the explosion reverberated throughout that canyon.
M-80s, by the way, do not, as the long-time urban myth holds (which I’d always believed until I researched this column), equate to a fourth-of-a-stick of dynamite, since dynamite consists of different chemicals.
Despite these incidents and a few others like them, I managed to avoid any teenage injuries myself, but one of my two younger brothers was not so fortunate, having injured an eye (while a friend blistered his hand) in our own backyard when what’s called a “cherry bomb” went of prematurely after the fuse failed. In one of my wiser teenage decisions, I’d opted out for once, advised them not to do it, and then went inside before I heard the explosion.
Finally, one more negative outcome from firework displays that should be mentioned is one that often goes unrecognized: the air and even ground pollution they create. The chemicals, which range from antimony sulfide to even arsenic, are dispersed by both smoke in the air, and in ground particles.
Although some firework advocates argue that the effect are negligible, there’s no denying that millions of dollars of valuable chemicals go up in smoke every year, and have led to some debates about fireworks in places like Lake Arrowhead, and their blast affects not only on pets, but on the beloved eagles nesting there, along with the chemical residues that coat the lake afterwards. The carbon dioxide and monoxide that fireworks release can also trigger attacks in people with asthma.
Now, with all this said, the question remains: where do we go from here? And, fortunately, there are a number of alternatives to fireworks that can been seen on the internet. Although there are what is known as “silent fireworks,” they still release chemicals, so much more promising for public displays are the evolving technologies of drone and laser beam shows, which many cities are already switching over to.
These shows have the advantage of both eliminating pollution, but also the nerve-shattering blasts which opened this piece—like the ones that not only sent our husky into the shower and then under the bed but also drive me up the wall.
That takes care of the official shows, but what about those blasts that seem to come from all directions and from just down the street? and that’s a much more challenging problem because they continue to happen despite being banned for many years here in Redlands and in other municipalities, with rather stiff fines when “firework fools” are occasionally found and fingered.
Aye, but there’s the rub, as Shakespeare would say, and I once talked to our city’s former police chief about the problem, and he acknowledged how difficult that is. Authorities are working on it though, with some cities not only employing drones in shows, but also for surveillance to “smoke out” (so to speak) those thoughtless morons who seem to possess no empathy at all for pets and their owners.
Finally, I also had another simple reason I wanted no fireworks this Fourth of July: considering what’s been going on in this country lately, I don’t think we deserved them. Instead, I stand ashamed as millions of Americans continue to trash what those brilliant men in 1776 attempted to establish. But that’s another column for another day, so I’ll just leave it at that.
Instead, let me ask you to communicate with lawmakers and other community leaders, urging them to work on phasing out fireworks. For all the reasons mentioned above, it’s well past time, both for people and for pets, like our sweet and loving, lady husky, shivering under the bed.
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Phill Courtney has taught high school English and was a candidate for Congress twice with the Green party in Riverside County. His email is: pjcourtney1311@gmail.com