Fireworks Safety

Spring is here, and we are only weeks away from the first long week­end of the sea­son. What’s more fun than some fire­works from the local vari­ety store to cel­e­brate a hol­i­day at the cot­tage or back­yard?

The vibrant colours and eye-catch­ing bursts can make you for­get how dan­ger­ous they can be. How­ev­er, there have been many unfor­tu­nate inci­dents. For exam­ple, About 50 peo­ple north of Mon­tre­al, Que., got a sober­ing reminder of the dan­gers involved in Fire­works.

Dur­ing the fes­tiv­i­ties, peo­ple in Ter­re­bonne, Que., set off fire­works in a back­yard. One of the colour­ful explo­sives hit the roof of a near­by home under con­struc­tion. The flames spread rapid­ly, dam­ag­ing six homes and caus­ing about $1 mil­lion in dam­ages. Luck­i­ly, no one was hurt as 49 fire­fight­ers bat­tled the fire.

This is why the Explo­sives Act, admin­is­tered by the Explo­sives Reg­u­la­to­ry Divi­sion (ERD) of Nat­ur­al Resources Cana­da, restricts the sale and pur­chase of fire­works and rec­om­mends safe­ty pre­cau­tions.

Cana­da allows fire­works in two cat­e­gories: dis­play and fam­i­ly or con­sumer. Dis­play fire­works can only be set off by expe­ri­enced, licensed adults and crowd super­vi­sion is manda­to­ry. Orga­niz­ers need a per­mit. Accord­ing to the Cana­da Safe­ty Coun­cil, more than 16,500 Cana­di­ans are licensed to con­duct exhi­bi­tion demon­stra­tions.

Fam­i­ly or con­sumer fire­works are those used by the gen­er­al pub­lic. Some com­mon types of these are:

Roman can­dles, wheels, foun­tains, bar­rages, sparklers and more.

They are designed for recre­ation­al use by the pub­lic, but there are safe­ty pro­ce­dures that peo­ple should fol­low.

There are Impor­tant Safe­ty pro­ce­dures:

Fol­low the Laws. The ERD has explo­sive reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing the use of fire­works. Still, provinces, ter­ri­to­ries or cities may have their reg­u­la­tions, such as restrict­ing the pur­chase and use to cer­tain times of the year. Peo­ple must be at least 18 years of age to pur­chase fire­works.

Buy fire­works only from reli­able deal­ers. ERD has lists of autho­rized man­u­fac­tur­ers in Cana­da and abroad. A bilin­gual label is anoth­er indi­ca­tion that fire­works are autho­rized. Do not use or smug­gle fire­works from anoth­er coun­try because the qual­i­ty is ques­tion­able, and they may be a safe­ty haz­ard. Mak­ing your fire­works is not rec­om­mend­ed.

Store fire­works prop­er­ly. Please keep them in a cool, dry place away from chil­dren. Check to see if there are any spe­cial han­dling instruc­tions. Ten kilo­grams gross weight is the max­i­mum amount that can be stored in a dwelling. Amounts more sig­nif­i­cant than that must be kept in a sep­a­rate, locked build­ing.

Trans­porta­tion. Fire­works must be trans­port­ed in a vehi­cle’s trunk, not the pas­sen­ger com­part­ment. If your vehi­cle does­n’t have a trunk, put them in a con­tain­er with a lid. Please do not smoke while load­ing, trans­port­ing or unload­ing them.

Get­ting start­ed

Set-up. Use fire­works out­doors, nev­er indoors. That goes for sparklers, too. The Cana­da Safe­ty Coun­cil says sparklers can burn as hot as 650 F and rec­om­mends they be used out­doors — on a dri­ve­way, side­walk or anoth­er fire-resis­tant sur­face. It rec­om­mends sparklers be used under adult super­vi­sion. Once they’ve burned, they should be doused and placed imme­di­ate­ly in a met­al con­tain­er. The coun­cil rec­om­mends not sub­sti­tut­ing sparklers for can­dles on a cake.

Choose a clear, open area. The area should be far away from build­ings, vehi­cles, over­head obstruc­tions and dry brush or grass. There should be a min­i­mum clear area of 30 metres by 30 metres for aer­i­al fam­i­ly fire­works, like roman can­dles, and 20 metres by 20 metres for foun­tains and oth­er ground-based fire­works.

Check for wind. Fire­works should be lit with the winds blow­ing away from spec­ta­tors. If winds are strong, do not set off fire­works.

Have water near­by. A buck­et or a filled hose should be kept near­by in case of emer­gency.

Read all instruc­tions. Direc­tions for each of the prod­ucts should be read in advance.

Use ground-based fire­works on a hard sur­face. Ground-based fire­works, like foun­tains, should be lit on a hard, flat sur­face to make sure they are sta­ble. On grass, ply­wood should be laid down first.

Bury aer­i­al fire­works. For roman can­dles, bury (do not pile) the device half its length in the ground or a large pail or box filled with earth or sand.

Keep spec­ta­tors safe. All onlook­ers should be at least 20 metres away from the dis­plays.

Set­ting off fire­works

Use prop­er eye pro­tec­tion and cloth­ing. Wear safe­ty gog­gles or safe­ty glass­es. Reg­u­lar glass­es or sun­glass­es do not pro­vide ade­quate pro­tec­tion and could poten­tial­ly make injuries worse. Wear non-flam­ma­ble cloth­ing such as cot­ton. Do not wear syn­thet­ic fab­rics such as nylon or poly­ester.

Keep chil­dren away. Do not let chil­dren han­dle or play with them, even sparklers.

Use care when han­dling fire­works. Do not drop them or smoke while han­dling them. Do not car­ry them in your pock­ets.

Use care when set­ting off fire­works. Only one per­son should be in charge of light­ing fire­works. Do not put any part of your body over fire­works or touch them with your hands when light­ing fire­works. Nev­er point or throw them at peo­ple. Dur­ing the show, keep unused fire­works away from the fir­ing area and cov­er them to keep from set­ting them off by acci­dent.

Duds or mis­fires. Nev­er try to re-light fire­works that have mis­fired. Wait 30 min­utes, then dunk them in a buck­et of water.

Clean up after­wards. Wait half an hour after the show has fin­ished. Then check the area for duds and clean up debris. Recheck the fol­low­ing day.

And final­ly, remem­ber that while you enjoy fire­works, your neigh­bours may not. In an urban set­ting be mind­ful of your neigh­bours. Fire­works can scare small chil­dren and pets.   Alco­hol and fire­works don’t mix, don’t drink and work with these items. Check with your neigh­bours and a neigh­bour­hood asso­ci­a­tion before pro­ceed­ing. You might be able to pool your resources for a safe, enjoy­able show for the entire com­mu­ni­ty.