Delight Your Children with a Home Fireworks Show
Few things are more fulfilling than seeing the world through the eyes of your child – and few things can delight a precious child like a dazzling display of fireworks. A home fireworks show is a great way to make memories with your children and entertain your adult family and friends, too.
You don’t have to stick with fountains, snakes, and spinners, either. You can buy consumer fireworks in many states that break in the air, creating stunning effects like peonies, brocades, comets, dahlias, palm trees, and more. You just need to prepare your home fireworks show properly, and set off your pyrotechnics safely. Doing so requires a lot of outdoor space, but if you have the space, a home fireworks show can be a great way to celebrate holidays or just have a fun weekend.
Create Fireworks Racks for Safety
You don’t need to be particularly handy to build an effective and safe fireworks rack. If you want to light off an assortment of mortars, cakes, and shells, you can anchor them to a large piece of wood on the ground using a drill and some screws. Grab a piece of plywood that is at least two feet wide and about eight feet long. You’ll attach your fireworks in the order you’re going to light them. Run them down the long sides of the wood and place the wood on your firing line so that the short side is facing your audience.
Attaching your fireworks to your piece of plywood isn’t hard. Most fireworks you can buy commercially have a clay plug in the bottom of the package, and you can drive screws through that clay plug and into the plywood. Some fireworks will have a plastic base, so you can drive your screws through that instead.
Put Your Audience at a Safe Distance
You’re going to need to keep your audience very far back from your firing line. How high does your highest firework ascend? Take that distance, then add half as much again, and that’s how far back your audience needs to be from the firing line. So if your highest firework ascends to 120 feet, you will need to keep your audience 180 feet away. The distance is so that if a firework falls over, or if the wind blows hot debris towards your audience, they will be safe.
Keep Debris in the Fallout Zone
Make sure you put your audience upwind of the firing area, because a stiff breeze can blow debris in unexpected directions. You really shouldn’t be lighting off fireworks if the wind is blowing harder than about five miles an hour, because wind can blow fireworks far off course and contribute to fires. Make sure you have a fallout zone in front of the firing line that encompasses a distance about twice as big as your highest firework’s height, just in case. The fallout zone should be free of flammable debris, trees and bushes, and homes and other structures.
Wear the Right Clothes for Setting Off Fireworks
To set off fireworks safely, wear fireproof clothes. That means long sleeves, long pants, socks, gloves, and a hat made with natural fibers, like cotton, because natural fibers won’t melt into your skin like synthetics will. Your hat should have a brim to protect your neck from falling sparks. Goggles can protect your eyes, and a headlamp can help you see the fuses while you’re lighting them.
Practice Good Fireworks Safety
Emergency rooms across the country treat thousands for firework injuries each year, so take fireworks safety seriously. Do not let your children hold, play with, or get close to fireworks, especially lit fireworks. Don’t even give them sparklers – they can burn at 1,800 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to cause serious burns.
Never hold a lit firework – always use a rack so you don’t have to hold a lit firework, even for the moment it takes to put it down. Use a long grill lighter to light fireworks. Do not turn your back on a lit firework, and never point a lit firework at anything flammable, including a person. Have a source of water, a fire extinguisher, or buckets of dirt or sand handy to extinguish any fires that could erupt during a fireworks show. Always check for area burn bans before holding a fireworks show at home.
Want to give your children a special experience? Set up a home fireworks show. A home fireworks show can help you create memories that you and your children will cherish for the rest of your lives.
