Enjoy fireworks, but keep it safe

McCOOK, Neb. — In a few short days, people will be taking out their grills, gassing up the boats and jet skis, buying hamburgers and hot dogs, raising their American flags, and of course buying fireworks to ignite once the sun goes down.

Fireworks have become a staple of American Independence day since the 1780s when Massachusetts became the first state to adopt the fourth of July as an official state holiday.

City ordinances permit the sales of fireworks starting on June 28 every year, and firework have been preparing for the short sales period, as has the McCook fire department.

Firework related accidents resulted in eight deaths according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s annual report.

The 2023 report also reported approximately 9700 firework related injuries, with 66 percent of the injuries. Emergency rooms around the country estimate that 800 of those injuries were from firecrackers, and 700 from sparklers.

Amongst injuries, the group at the highest risk was 15–19-year-olds, with about 42 percent of all injuries being burns.

With the extra and injury risk associated with Independence Day, the fire department keeps a heightened alert.

“We keep a heightened state of alertness through the holidays, McCook in the past years, our community, our citizens have done an outstanding job at making sure people stay fire safe. We’ve had very few incidents over the time I’ve been here, we’ve had very few firework related incidents, even when we’ve had very dry seasons, we don’t have a lot of incidents which is good,” Fire Chief Marc Harpham said.

A key to firework safety is maintaining a level head and clear judgment in situations.

“Unfortunately, during the holidays people like to go out and celebrate and I get that, but if we become impaired and try to mess with fireworks, then bad things happen,” Harpham said.

Along with personal safety, firework vendors must obtain state and local permits and are subject to inspection from the fire marshal.

As temporary business establishments, many firework vendors set up their businesses in tents, and semi-truck trailers, and most help young people out by hiring middle and high schoolers as their workers.

Bellino fireworks, located right across from Runza and the Coppermill steakhouse, is one of these.

“From McCook, we hire mostly high school students and middle schoolers, I think the youngest is around fifth grade, and they’re very hard workers. We just try to help them out with a little extra summer work,” owner Miranda Koch said.

Fireworks sales are extremely quick given the short sales period, and make for interesting scenarios with the economics of fireworks.

“I don’t know the exact amount, but there’s close to $1 million worth of product in here, towards the end we try to sell everything, but what we don’t sell we have to load back up, and this year with all the moisture I think we’ll have a pretty profitable year,” Koch said.

“We’re celebrating our freedom, and you should be free to light off fireworks, but we have to put a little bit of restraint on that, cause there’s also a freedom to enjoy a quiet neighborhood and go to sleep, so if you set off fireworks after hours, we have to put a limit on that, not everyone has the holiday off, people have to get up in the morning,” Harpham said.

A note for firework buyers is traveling out of state to purchase fireworks is against the law regardless of whether the fireworks are illegal in Nebraska.

Those who don’t wish to set off their own fireworks can attend McCook Christian Church’s Freedom Festival, which donates proceeds from the festival to the police and fire department.

The McCook fire department recommends for firework safety to not let young children ignite fireworks, and to only let older children under responsible adult supervision do so, as well as never putting any lit fireworks under a container, and do not attempt to relight duds.

Keep a source of water, whether that be a bucket of water or a hose, and to soak fireworks once done before putting them in a dumpster.