This year’s Fourth of July fireworks promise to be especially explosive. The White House is endeavoring to smash the Guinness World Record for the largest-ever pyrotechnic display by shooting off 50 times more fireworks than last year. As such, the nation will ring in 250 years with barbeques, parades, and prescription sedatives for their panicked pets.
I understand the appeal. As a child, I loved fireworks. Each year, I waited impatiently for darkness to fall and was thrilled when the rockets’ red glare streaked across the night sky—and then fell into the coastal waters of Connecticut. And I am far from alone in my appreciation.
The first Independence Day, celebrated in 1777 in Philadelphia, included fireworks. Ever since, fireworks have symbolized celebration and freedom, becoming so intertwined with Independence Day that it is difficult to imagine one without the other.
Unfortunately, the costs of this fleeting spectral wonder are high, borne by negative consequences for our environment and our health.
Remember the deadly Palisades firestorm of January 2025, which erupted in the immediate vicinity of an earlier fireworks-ignited blaze that firefighters thought they had extinguished. Six days later, powerful Santa Ana winds kicked up smoldering embers that sparked one of Los Angeles’ most devastating infernos. The individual alleged to have started the Lachman fire was charged with arson in federal court, though the case ended in a mistrial.
In 2024, climate scientists combed through data on accidental fires in the U.S. over the past 20 years. They noticed a spike on one day in particular, which had nearly twice as many wildfires as any other day in the U.S. West. Researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that between 1992 and 2012, “the most common day for human-started fires by far was July 4th, US Independence Day, with 7,762 fires starting that day over the course of the record,” averaging
