Fourth Of July Celebrations

In the United States of America, the largest number of annual firework displays by far are fired on July fourth. Many firework companies will fire more displays that one night than they will the rest of the entire year. July fourth is the day Americans celebrate our Independence Day, a national holiday. During the day families may choose to enjoy a picnic, boating, a baseball game, swimming, a day at the beach, making home-made ice cream or other traditional fourth of July activity. Whatever a family does that day, odds are they want to see a firework display that night, fire their own consumer fireworks, or do both.

Some states, thankfully a minority, do not allow the sale of any consumer fireworks. People who live there only have one choice, go to a public firework display. Those displays are usually sponsored (paid for) by a city or by a country club (private club having a golf course, tennis courts and swimming pool for its members). Sometimes a display may be sponsored by a boat club, civic club or other similar private organization.

Nationally, consumer fireworks are regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The United States has fifty states. About a third of the states allow the sale of essentially all CPSC approved fireworks. Another third allow a somewhat limited selection and a third allow just a few firework types, or none at all. Most states that sell consumer fireworks do so during a limited summer selling season. In Texas it is June 24 through July 4th. That is a fairly typical length of selling season. A few states sell fireworks all year but that is definitely not typical.

Some time during the selling season families will go to firework stands to buy their fireworks. These are small buildings that allow customers to walk up and see what fireworks are for sale. Customers stand in front of the stand and sales personnel stand inside the open-front enclosure. In some places there are indoor, air-conditioned firework "superstores". Those are opening up in Texas now and it is much nicer to be inside a cool building than standing outside in the hot Texas summer. Most cities will not allow fireworks to be sold inside their city limits and many will not even allow possession of fireworks inside the city boundaries.

So where does one fire their fireworks if they cannot do so where they live? The lucky ones have a relative or friend that lives away from an incorporated city. The city I live in is unique. They sponsor a firework firing area July 3 and 4 on city property. The grass is burned off by the fire department in advance, fire trucks are brought there and city residents get to fire their own fireworks there. Imagine the "display" of consumer fireworks when there may be fifty to a hundred families firing in one large area at the same time. It is a cool thing to watch. I think that if more cities would do that, it would be a good thing.

Sometimes family members want to put on a consumer firework displays for all their relatives gathered for July fourth activities. Another possibility is that several families will meet at the same place and fire fireworks together, sharing the fun. No matter where and how families want to do it, they obviously need to do it SAFELY. In that regard I invite readers of this page to visit two other pages on this web site. Clicking on the links below should automatically take you to those pages. Both really are safety information pages.

SAFETY PAGE

YOUR OWN CONSUMER FIREWORK DISPLAY

The fourth of July in America "just would not be the fourth of July" without incredibly beautiful fireworks like this.