Fireworks safety guide

Pick the site before you buy anything, and set it up the same way every time. A good site is flat, open, and empty of anything that can catch fire or fall on someone.

• Use a flat, open area away from buildings, vehicles, dry grass, brush, and low branches or power lines.
• Fire on a surface that will not burn, such as bare dirt, gravel, or pavement, not a dry lawn.
• Set one firing line where devices are placed and lit, and a separate spectator line well back from it. Nobody moves toward the firing line once lighting starts.
• Keep a full bucket of water, a hose, or a fire extinguisher within reach for the whole night, and know where the nearest phone is.
• Put one person in charge of lighting. Everyone else watches from the spectator line.

• A rooftop, a moving vehicle, or a site with only one way out.
• Lighting anything inside a container, tube, glass, or metal object it was not built for.
• A dry lawn, mulch bed, or brush that has not been watered down first.

These are the spectator distances repeated across consumer fireworks safety guidance. Treat them as a floor. A bigger device, a crowd, pets, or a small yard all call for more room, not less, and the distance printed on the item itself always wins over a general figure.

• Keep spectators at least 35 feet back from ground based items such as fountains and sparkler stands.
• Keep spectators at least 150 feet back from anything that flies: cakes, mines, shells, roman candles, and missile batteries.
• Point every device straight up and away from people, structures, and vehicles, never at an angle toward anyone.
• Follow the distance printed on the item over any general number, including this one.

• Holding an aerial device in your hand or shooting it from a bottle, pipe, or anything not made to hold it.
• Letting anyone lean in to watch a lit device up close.

Wind carries sparks and burning debris, and it changes where a device drifts before it bursts. A site that was safe an hour ago can stop being safe the moment the wind shifts.

• Check wind direction before lighting anything, and check it again if it shifts.
• Set the firing line so wind blows away from spectators, structures, and dry vegetation, never toward them.
• Stop for the night in strong or gusty wind. A gust can tip a lit device off its base or carry debris back over the firing line.

• Assuming calm wind from an hour ago is still calm now.
• Shooting toward a road, a neighboring yard, or anywhere you cannot see into.

Not every device fires the way it is built to. A dud that looks dead can still have a fuse smoldering inside it, so the safe response is always the same: wait, then soak.

• If a device fails to light, or lights partway and stops, leave it exactly where it is and back away to the spectator line.
• Wait at least 15 to 20 minutes before anyone approaches it.
• Once the wait has passed, approach from the side, and soak the device in a bucket of water before you touch it or throw it away.

• Relighting a dud or picking it up to inspect it.
• Checking whether something is lit by looking down into it.
• Dropping a spent or dud device straight into a dry trash can.

Fireworks injuries concentrate in the hands, eyes, and face. Most of what protects you is not equipment, it is what you choose not to wear.

• Wear safety glasses or goggles, not sunglasses, when lighting or standing near active devices.
• Wear closed toe shoes. Sandals and bare feet are how most people get hurt stepping on something hot afterward.
• Tie back long hair and keep loose sleeves or scarves away from an open flame.
• Light fuses with a long fireplace style lighter rather than a match, so your hand stays at arm's length instead of crouched over the device.

• Letting the person lighting devices drink first. Alcohol and an open flame do not mix, for the shooter especially.
• Loose costumes, wide sleeves, or anything that dangles near the firing line.

The most common fireworks fires start after the show ends, not during it. An ember that looks cold can still start a fire hours later.

• Soak every spent device, including ones that look completely burned out, in a bucket of water before cleanup.
• Walk the site once more with the lights on, checking for embers, glowing paper, or hot debris.
• Bag wet debris separately and keep it away from anything flammable until trash day.

• Throwing spent fireworks straight into a dry trash can or bin.
• Calling the night done the moment the last device goes off.

Sparklers cause a large share of fireworks injuries among young children specifically because they look harmless. They are not.

• Treat a sparkler as a real fire hazard, not a toy.
• Keep young children at the spectator line for every other device, with no exceptions.
• If a child holds a sparkler, an adult stays with them the entire time, the sparkler is held at arm's length away from the body and away from anyone else, and it goes straight into a bucket of water the moment it is done.

• Letting a child light, carry, or wave anything other than a sparkler under direct, hand over hand adult supervision.
• Running, chasing, or horsing around near the firing line.