[bluedino]

They really should be controlled a lot more - a nearby house was hit by some sort of Roman candle thing and completely burned down the other night.

There was at least a lot less "illegal fireworks" when people had the drive two states away to buy them.

[skybrian]

Doesn't help in California because people buy them in Nevada and resell them. Apparently that's easier to do nowadays due to the Internet?

https://oaklandside.org/2026/07/01/illegal-fireworks-police-...

> Despite strict fireworks bans in many cities, including Oakland, they’ve become a year-round nuisance in the Bay Area. And one of the primary ways they’re spread is through the enterprising but illegal work of small-time dealers who obtain the contraband from licensed shops outside of California, sneak it into the state, and then sell hundreds and even thousands of pounds of explosives out of homes, vehicles, storage units, and even corner stores.

[bengale]

When I was in North Carolina on a trip the chap I was visiting said I'd know if I was crossing over to South Carolina when I saw all the fireworks shops as it was illegal to sell them in NC but not SC. Funny to see.

(No idea what the actual rules are, just repeating what he told me)

[WorldMaker]

The Kentucky/Indiana border has always been that way in my lifetime. Kentucky restricts fireworks sales to just "sparklers" and Indiana has much more latitude in what they can sell. The thing about Indiana fireworks stores that has long confused me has been how many of them are gas stations. That always seemed like a problematic pairing to me.

[0x0000000]

Same in the NY/NJ/PA tri-state. Ahead of the 4th a NY state trooper sits in the parking lot of the Phantom Fireworks in Matamoras, presumably calling in NY plates for their buddy to go pull over.

We just took the back roads home instead of the highway.

[SilverElfin]

In a lot of states, Indian reservations can also sell them. And they’re basically completely unregulated. It’s illegal to bring them or set them off into other towns but people do it. Hundreds of people. And tens of thousands have to be repeatedly woken up because of their selfishness.

[SoftTalker]

Yeah not sure why that changed, when I was a kid you could only get sparklers and small stuff that stayed on the ground. Today I could get everything for a near-professional show if I wanted to spend the money.

[Loughla]

When I was a kid you could get actual m80's that were like a quarter stick of dynamite. Now you can only get little firecrackers that don't even blow up little green army men.

It's really dependent on your state laws. My state allows fireworks, so you can get most things but they are very limited in size and explosive content.

What it amounts to is that most cities/counties don't enforce their existing laws in this area because people would have a shit fit, and they would arrest so many people that it's kind of impossible.

Something something banning things doesn't really work to do anything but make criminals out of every day people.

[jandrewrogers]

> actual m80's that were like a quarter stick of dynamite

Not even close.

A military M80 [0] is ~5g of flash powder, an inconsequential amount of low-explosive albeit enough to seriously injure yourself. The consumer "M80" are even weaker. These are used to simulate real explosions by the military.

The smallest standardized military demolition charge contains ~110g of TNT, in a similar small cylindrical format. There are multiple orders of magnitude difference in power between an M80 and these demolition charges.

A "quarter stick of dynamite" isn't a standard thing. But if it was, it would probably come in around 50g of TNT equivalent.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-80_(explosive)

[BenjiWiebe]

Btw, flash powder (at least the pyrotechnic variety as opposed to that used for camera flashes) is actually a primary high explosive.

Primary = easy to activate, doesn't need an explosive initiator. High explosive = detonates rather than deflagrates.

And for bonus points, most flash powder is self-confining in very small quantities. Means a little pile of powder will detonate even if not enclosed.

[Fezzik]

You could sure make decent explosives with OTC fireworks though - in the early 90s we would buy hundreds of those whistling fireworks, hammer them, cut the bottoms off, and then fill various bottles with all the powder. We made a shockwave with one of our makeshift bombs and decided we should probably stop after that.

[sidewndr46]

In most states you can go buy all the tannerite you want. That's an actual explosion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VaLtf_EIVQ

[jandrewrogers]

The old school whistling fireworks were often based on picrate chemistry. Picrates famously have the ability when burned to hover between normally deflagration and true detonation; the whistling is a side effect of this. One of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history (see below) was a picrate explosion. These aren’t used anymore for safety reasons; they don’t have a great stability profile and picrates are true high-explosives.

Over the years they have found alternatives for and phased out most high-explosives used in fireworks. Many high-explosives will just deflagrate/burn but can spontaneously detonate with considerable power if the conditions are right, which makes them dangerous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion

[dmurray]

Have advances in explosives, fuses and quality control made fireworks safer in the last 40 years?

Or perhaps the safety improvements are offset by sellers now offering bigger fireworks (either because those are now actually safe and both buyers and sellers are more comfortable with them, or just because of a general hedonic improvement).

Or perhaps they are safer for their users, but worse for starting fires or interfering with low-flying aircraft.

Either way I would be interested in reading more about this, something more nuanced than "fireworks dangerous". At the least it's a counterpoint to what happened with illegal drugs which seem to have become more dangerous as a result of regulation and bans.

[jtbayly]

M80s were more like 1/8th of a stick, I think. My uncle bought quarter sticks of dynamite one time. Wow. Quite a bit bigger and louder than an M80, and M80s were LOUD! My dad's cousin blew off most of his thumb and parts of several fingers with one. It was old, and it had a flash fuse. He was planning to toss it, but it went off instantly. (Don't hold fireworks when you are lighting them.)

A couple of years ago my brother got some flat triangles from a guy on the side of the road. First thing I've seen in years that was like an M80. We put a flat soccer ball over one, and it went 50 feet in the air. Very fun.

[fc417fc802]

> Today I could get everything for a near-professional show if I wanted to spend the money.

Not unless you're purchasing on the black market or (illegally) manufacturing it yourself.† The professional stuff is substantially larger than anything sold on the consumer market.

† Which is surprisingly trivial to do BTW but please be extremely cautious and very thoroughly master the underlying theory if you decide to go that route.

[trollbridge]

Yep. I volunteered for a real fireworks show in California once. The size of the mortars was… so much bigger than the stuff I was used to seeing people get at fireworks shops.

Along with the reminder from the safety coordinator that each firework was capable of completely talking your arm or leg off. The “consumer” grade fireworks aren’t capable of that, although they’re still dangerous.

[jtbayly]

I'm not sure if being homemade was the reason, but I just heard about a medflight for somebody hit by a homemade firework.

I say this as somebody with a book on how to make them, but I've always been a bit too scared to try.

[fc417fc802]

Being homemade is (almost) never in and of itself a reason. A lack of knowledge or judgment certainly can be. However often the motivation for DIY is to circumvent regulations to go big but of course one of the primary reasons for such regulations is that the associated consequences when things go wrong are dire. The story could well have turned out the same even if the item had been purchased from a reputable vendor. There's a very good reason the professional shows use barges or large fields and set up a huge exclusion zone around them.

[nozzlegear]

When I was a kid growing up in Iowa in the 90s, my friends and I would hold Roman candles and bottle rockets in our hands and try to shoot them at each other. We're lucky we didn't get seriously injured, but it was all fun and games back then as long as you didn't tell your parents.

[topgrain2]

Did you move? There are huge differences between states in what’s available, all the way from “just sparklers and other tiny stuff that doesn’t fly” up to “anything that doesn’t require an explosives license”, and within states areas near cities often restrict fireworks sales.

[lazide]

Some places, I’m pretty sure they just waive the explosives license too.

[bengale]

I hate sparklers so much. Watchings kids wave those things about makes me feel so sick.

[andrewinardeer]

Capitalism. Get rich or die trying.

[fc417fc802]

Rather than regulate fireworks out of existence wouldn't it be better to fix the problem at the root? Why do we permit such fire prone housing to be built just to save a few dollars?

[loeg]

The root problem is drunk people lighting off a bunch of rocket-propelled explosives, actually. Even if the houses were fireproof concrete bunkers, they'd still be starting wildfires in the grass/brush/trees. (And of course, it's more than "a few dollars.")

[digi59404]

> Why do we permit such fire prone housing to be built just to save a few dollars.

I know you didn’t mean it, but this question isn’t a question. It’s a statement formed as a question. It’s a judgement. It’s not a curiosity legitimately asking why.

There are so many good reasons why houses in the US are built the way they are. Some of which are…

1. Concrete/Brick houses retain heat and are often harder to cool. They also don’t insulate well. US Houses have been built as a means of controlling moisture, humidity, and cooling efficiently.

2. Stick built houses cost less to repair. Brick/Concrete houses require much more demolition to repair, rebuild, or change. While replacing a load bearing wall in a stick house can be done easily, concrete and brick require the entire wall to be torn down.

3. Humidity, Moisture, and Wind matter. When moisture gets into concrete and brick then freezes it can cause huge structural cracks. Whereas in stick houses, it’s not as big a deal. I had a house with a raised driveway and a walkout basement. The basement and driveway had to be completely demolished due to moisture cracks. If the entire house was concrete it would have been a write off.

4. Soil composition matters. In some areas the soil is not capable of holding the weight of all the concrete and brick. Causing structure issues later and endangering folks.

Modern building codes today in most places are pretty solid. They require 2x6 framing, they require testing of the airways in the house to ensure proper air leaking/sealing. They require the structure of the house be built with specific bolts. They require the framing to be done in a way that resists wind sheer and twisting.

The US Building codes have been revised consistently over time. This started with the nuclear bomb testing in the 40s and onward. They built houses, and then bombed them to find out how to make them better. We’ve learned from Tornados, Hurricanes, and more. These all have resulted in major improvements to building houses.

Today in the US we have no shortage of housing methods. We have SIP Framing, ICF Concrete Framing, Recycled ICF, Modular designs, etc. Most still go with stick built because it’s the better option for the majority.

I lived in a 2x4 house in TN that was built poorly and improperly. I spent 200k in 4 years repairing that house. Now I live in a 2x6 built slab house. This house was built by a luxury builder properly.

The difference between the two is astonishing. The TN House couldn’t go less than 82 degrees when it was hot and humid. The luxury house is in Vegas, it can be 50 degrees inside when it’s 120 outside. You can cut costs on stick built, but you can also make some of the best houses with it.

[digi59404]

Also, to add to this what we’ve learned about fires and houses is that.. it’s less about how the house is built.

Whether a house catches fire or not is almost always due to the landscaping, maintenance, and roof of the house.

Traditional house siding and roof will resist flames and fires. However, if an overgrown bush catches fire it will cause enough heat to the side of the house to break down that protection and set it aflame. Same with leaves in gutters, etc.

[cyberax]

Since we're on a wild tangent here, the US house construction is also held back by the sheer momentum of wood-framed buildings.

For example, aerated autoclaved concrete has better structural strength, doesn't need additional insulation, completely non-combustible, and is cheaper to build. Yet approximately nobody in the US uses it.

[rlpb]

> For example, aerated autoclaved concrete has better structural strength, doesn't need additional insulation, completely non-combustible, and is cheaper to build.

Apparently it ages out though and becomes unsafe when it does, resulting in a scandal in the UK:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-66686864

"There is nothing fundamentally wrong with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) as building material or system. Many buildings from the 60s and 70s built from many materials are now having problems due to inadequate maintenance, and old age."

I'm not exactly sure what this is supposed to mean. I've never heard of this problem with regular brick or concrete structures.

[cyberax]

Not really. AAC was used to build floors without enough of additional reinforcement, and this is a bad idea. Just like regular concrete, it's weak in tension and is even more brittle.

If you use it to build walls and then use regular concrete or wood to build floors, it has none of these issues.

It's an amazing material, very light and it can be cut with a special handsaw on site.

[fc417fc802]

No, it really was a question. Please don't inject your own biases and assumptions when interpreting my words.

It seems that you've invented a false dichotomy where the only options are wood frame or brick and concrete and then assumed me to be advocating for the latter. I was not. There are a variety of ways in which wood frame structures can be made less prone to external sources of fire. At least a few jurisdictions in california have adopted some of these methods into code as of late.

My question implied judgment to an extent, sure, but it was also genuine in that I truly do not understand why we as a society are not more proactive about these things. It isn't limited to fires either. In the face of all sorts of natural disasters we consistently optimize regulations for cost rather than safety. Consider the myriad examples of structures being built in flood prone areas.

[infecto]

What alternative do you propose?