Sending Your Money Up In Smoke One Firework at a Time

Money isn’t the only thing going up in smoke. Wildfire experts are begging you to forego fireworks celebrations this year.

Photo by Roven Images on Unsplash

Bam! There goes $100 bucks. Bang! And another couple hundred. Pow, pow crackle, pow! And you could have bought a homeless person a house.

I get it. Fireworks are fun. It’s not like I don’t find them entertaining, and I have even spent a little bit of money on them — a long, long time ago. But now, all I see is dollars exploding in the air.

Your town’s local firework display is estimated to cost between $10,000-$30,000. If you attend a larger city’s show, like New York City, you will likely to be watching a $50,000 show.

I don’t know about where you live, but that could fix a lot of potholes in my town! I can think of a hundred different ways that money could be better spent.

Aside from what a complete waste of money these spectacles of light and sound are, they also have much worse consequences.

Accidents Happen

We have all seen the videos of people lighting off fireworks in their hand only to have it blown off. A friend of mine lost her pinky due to a firework accident.

Even more devastatingly, a three-year-old boy was killed when a consumer firework struck him in the head during a July Fourth celebration. This happened while he was standing in between the legs of his father. So, even in a supervised, supposedly safe environment, accidents still happen.

According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), in 2018, U.S. hospital emergency rooms treated an estimated 9,100 people for fireworks related injuries; half of those injuries were to the extremities and 34% were to the eye or other parts of the head. Children younger than 15 years of age accounted for more than one-third (36%) of the estimated 2018 injuries.

Environmental Damage

Maybe a lesser-known consequence of fireworks, but just as devastating, is the environmental damage they can cause.