With most municipal shows canceled and fireworks sales skyrocketing lately, local fire departments and paramedics are worried there could be a rise in tragic incidents this Fourth of July weekend, especially when it comes to kids.
Some parts of the region allow fireworks such as sparklers and other devices that don’t necessarily cause an explosion, but those can still cause serious injuries when they’re not used right.
“Even though it’s legal, we still don’t recommend that children, young teenagers, anyone but adults” use sparklers this weekend, said Anne Arundel County Fire Chief Trisha Woolford.
She says they see children suffer injuries too many times from devices that are “legally purchased, the parents think they’re OK, they give it to them and let them use it in the cul-de-sac or on the sidewalk. So we don’t recommend anyone of a young age use those products.”
The reason is simple: Those little sparklers get extremely hot.
“As the sparklers burn from the tip down, it can reach, in general, the average temperature is 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit,” said Lt. Robert Flynn, an investigator with the Anne Arundel County Fire Marshall’s Office. “Some even higher than that depending on what the actual sparkler is made out of.”
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The minimum temperature needed for something to ignite into a flame is 640 degrees, but while generally those extremely hot temperatures don’t extend off the metal rod, “if you were to lay the sparkler down, now it’s burning and it can set anything that’s around it on fire,” Flynn said. “Or if a child takes it and touches somebody else with it, they get burned.”
The Consumer Product Safety Commission says injuries to hands and fingers account for 30% of all fireworks-related injuries, with arms account for another one in 10. Injuries to the head and face are impacted another 31% of the time.
“The smaller children, they see that sparkle and one of the first things they try to do is grab it,” Flynn added, “so now you have 1,800-degree metal going in their hand and it causes burns,” which don’t heal easily.
Flynn said it usually requires trips to a special burn center.
Last year, not everyone was so lucky. At least a dozen people were killed and an estimated 10,000 injuries were treated in hospital emergency rooms because of fireworks last year.
A full 73% of those injuries happened between June 21 and July 21 of 2019. Nearly half of those injuries involved people under the age of 20, and more than a third were under 15-years-old.
If you do plan to include your own sparklers or other devices in any July 4 celebrations, Woolford said you should still make sure you aren’t near any structures, and to have a bucket of water nearby.
Soaking the fireworks in the water all night long won’t hurt either. Last year, several fires that caused significant damage were started by fireworks that weren’t properly disposed of.
