Setting Off Illegal Fireworks at Home...Yay or Nay?!

Nay, here. But, we are only two blocks away from the legal fireworks and just sit out in our front yard and enjoy them.

Many do have illegals here.. M80's.. Now, I can't imagine where these are from she says sarcastically.(Locally Armory always seems to have munitions missing..hmmmmmm)

Fire danger is extremely high here at this time of year and we always have some knucklehead that thinks he can outsmart the law and starts a fire or gets burned.

Some folks just don't believe the laws are made for them to abide, but for them to break.

Legal fireworks are sold in Washington, but not Oregon.

Be careful if you do use them. Hard to have sympathy for someone not smart enough to take caution, but they line up in the ER every year.

rrdgrnr:

Some folks just don't believe the laws are made for them to abide, but for them to break.

That's me...Demonic Law Breaking Krissy!

Since I only do it once a year, however, I can live with the overwhelming guilt of my crime.   

Have a Happy & Safe rest of this 4th, Folks!

 Another reason not to this year--our fire danger is high.

Illegal here.  Had a horrible forest fire several years back caused by fireworks.  The wind swept flames burned thousands of acres, and many homes.  It was horrible.  Came close to us.  Home shot-off fireworks often are done with no thought in mind about possible sparks in dry tinder and how it could instantly cause fire that you cannot control.  

I have many fond memories from when I lived as a young girl and young woman in southern Calif. of  public displays of those spectacular colorful ones.  At those displays they drove in a couple of fire trucks...just in case. 

Now, as a resident of Alaska, our skies this time of year are too light at night to show off those gorgeous colorful displays.   But people go out and buy fireworks anyway.  They go for the loud booms.

We get all bundled up against the cold and go out on December 31st to celebrate the New Year's Eve with the sky filling displays.  At that time, the skies are very dark so we can see them.  The threat of fire is quite low, although not impossible.  There usually is considerable snow on the ground and everything is hard frozen.  Then I rest easier about fires.

They are illegal in the county we live in but -- they are sold in this county.  Go figure.

We do not set them off BUT we have a neighbor across the street who does.  The most beautiful display of fireworks you could imagine.  Do not know what they pay for them, must cost them a fortune.  So, we stay home, out of the traffic, and enjoy the July 4th fireworks from the comfort of our yard -- or inside out house depending on mosquito's!

For those of you setting them off -- please be careful -- another neighbors dad blew his arm off one year.  Very sad.

WE have them all over town 2 weeks before and two weeks after the 4th. Some of them Boom like real bombs. They are supposed to stop at 10 PM but I still hear some at midnight.

Today, after a busy morning setting them off they set a house on fire right uthe street from me, only one block way.

Good thing we had as much rain as we did or they'd burn the dang tomw down. My one neighbor's teen seems to have more money than the city. If I find his debri on my property, back it goes over the fence into their yard.

I wish they would ban them in town and let everybody who wants to shoot them off go out to the edge of town to the football and track field, line them up a a row and let them bang away, have an abulance stand by. OR better yet, donate the money to the city to help pay for the big fireworks the city puts on in the poark by the lake.

I just don't get why grown-ups get such a kick  out of setting off sparks amd noise not to metion letting small choldren doing it while unsupervised.

Sometimes I watch the city fireworks from my fripont steps.

They claim the charities which sell the foreworks here (Lions and another outfit) need the money but why not just donate what profit they make and donate the rest for the big city fireworks. That would  solve the whole prblem..

Speaking of fireworks...one dead and four hurt when a truck carrying fireworks explodes in North Carolina...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/04/north.carolina.fireworks/index.html

The only thing legal here are snakes, sparklers and one other I can't think of- but I can describe- they're a little sticky, so you reach into the package, pull out some on your fingers, and sling them down on concrete or rock- the impact has the same effect as a toy capgun.

From here, it's a 2 hour drive to get the stuff that's illegal- the serious pyrotechnical stuff- firecrackers, bottlerockets, M80s, etc.  Personally, I don't care, as long as they stop at a reasonable time- like when the pros set their stuff off...After that, then I tend to get annoyed cuz I'm probably in bed.

I will relate the story of someone I knew in San Diego who set off an M80 from Mexico- he wears a hook where his hand once was.

Your risk.

BonnieRae:

We get all bundled up against the cold and go out on December 31st to celebrate the New Year's Eve with the sky filling displays.  At that time, the skies are very dark so we can see them.

And don't forget Fur Rhondy!!  

At the risk of being labled a "fuddy duddy", I am extremely NAY.  As was said before here, they are ILlegal.  There is also the fire danger and personal danger.  My problem with them is that they are not legal, yet parents seem to be teaching their children that laws are okay to break, then when the kid loses an eye or a hand, the parent wants to sue someone else.  DUH!  They are illegal for a reason.  If you can't go to see the LEGAL displays in your town, do like we will--watch them on television! 

Ok--I'll get off my soapbox now.

We are sort-of county and most years do shoot some off. The neighbors all around have 1-11 acres each, so we're not city, and the sheriff dept pretty much leaves us have at it.

The funnest 4th we ever had was a few years ago. We had our usual booty and friends over to celebrate. Our neighbors a couple acres away had their booty--the $500.00 box of realistic fireworks, two of those boxes, and friends over to celebrate.

Well, we started out slow, the smaller, lame fireworks first. Neighbors did the same. Then a little bigger and better. And louder. Neighbors did the same. Soon enough it turned into a contest, louder and bigger, bigger and louder, and when they shot off an awesome firework we at our side would Oooohh! and Aaahhh! Then we'd try to beat that and their side would Oooohh! and Aaaahhh!

Then they got too big for us. Their $500.00 box, we just couldn't compete with thatl. Until my husband came up with an idea.

He and his buddy went to the garage. Returned with an oven mit and an unfamiliar tube looking thing about a foot long. "It's a flare", he said, "from the Korean War." I don't know how guys end up with these things, he said he got it from a friend. So he put on the oven mit ("like that will protect you when the thing backfires and blows your arm off", I said) and held the flare while his buddy lit it. Then up it went. Up, up, up....completely silent in it's ascent...up, up, and up some more, in complete silence, and the higher it went the more it glowed, and the higher it went, the more hoots and hollers from our competing neighbors..."Go Baby!! Go Baby!!... COOL!!"

Well I don't know if you have ever been in the dark with a fired-off flare, but I can tell you that it lit up the whole neighborhood in a bright pink glow, so much so that shadows from the trees and houses were visible on the grass and in the field. Well the flare was now heading right over our house, and naturally we walked slowly like zombies to the house, we were all worried but no one said anything. Then it just fizzled out and that was it. Then clapping came from the neighbors.

Guess we won. 

 Yay (we're celebrating America and FREEDOM)

 That said I'm not personally setting them off. And it's kind of cold and rainy, has been all day, but off and on, so who knows if they will have any fireworks. They cancelled last nights.

 I'm thinking it sees clearer out so they will go ahead.

  I always think, when I hear of all the money spent on fireworks (by the cities and towns) what a waste! It could go to help hungry and homeless people, for example. 

All fireworks--including sparklers--are illegal here.

Which is not to say people don't have them.  We used to set some of the small things off, but the older I get, the more sense the rules make.  We haven't set any off for years, and I seriously doubt we ever will again.

Just came in from sitting on my deck, nervously watching the folks at a party across the side street from us.  The guests were mostly parked in front of the party house, so they were setting off their fireworks at the end of our driveway.  Fairly large ones, and a little too close to our old wooden deck and old, dry stockade fence for comfort.  Then they started tossing sparklers into our pine trees--that really worried me, the way pine burns.  And, of course, I can see that they left all the mess and debris out in front of my driveway--so I'll have to get out there in the morning and clean up all the mess.  I hate having a mess in the street in front of/next to my house--you should see me in fall, raking and cleaning the leaves out of the street--LOL!

And as if that isn't enough to make one stop and think, there's this story.  One of dd's coworkers has a son who, as a toddler, was being watched by some family members.  They had illegal fireworks in the house.  When whoever was watching him turned their back, he decided to light one on the range.  He lost fingers and is totally blind because someone had illegal fireworks.  You never know when something like that will cause a problem.

So a huge NAY from this household.

Edited to add--yes, I just came in from cleaning up the mess left by the neighbors.  I picked up a full bag of fireworks debris, including a couple of dozen sparkler wires that were in my driveway (definitely don't want any of those poking into my huge, expensive, off-road tires), along with several beer bottles, etc.  I really don't think alcohol and fireworks should be mixed.  Then I used the spinsweep on the street and picked up an entire hopper of the paper and little debris they left behind.  Oh, the neighbor did finally surface when I was about done and apologised.  And then, last night, when their drunk company was leaving, one of them decided to drive through our driveway (we have a corner property, and the driveway goes around the house, from one street to the other) rather than taking the street.  DH was NOT amused.