Heat wave takes another victim: July 4th fireworks
Jeff Horwich: Hundreds of towns in the east and midwest face more triple-digit temperatures this week — not to mention wildfires burning in the west. All this means fireworks won’t be part of tomorrow’s holiday in many towns this year.
Here’s Marketplace’s Eve Troeh.
Eve Troeh: Chesterfield, Mo., is one of those towns. Tom McCarthy is director of parks and recreation. He says the city got a good deal on fireworks this year, and planned to go big.
Tom McCarthy: Yeah, real big. We actually were supposed to be the largest fireworks display in the St. Louis metropolitan area.
But, the show’s canceled, because the “fall zone” for fireworks debris is a field that’s brown and dry as can be.
McCarthy: The conditions were just too good for a fire.
Many towns will save their fireworks to shoot off later; Chesterfield at its September food festival “Forks and Corks.”
In Tippecanoe, Ind., the official fireworks will go on. Firefighters will hose down the park first, and stand by during the show. But backyard rockets have been banned, says assistant county commissioner Frank Cederquist.
Frank Cederquist: You don’t know when you shoot one off at home where it’s going to go. Is it going to land on someone’s roof?
Many towns that’ve banned home pyrotechnics have added police to keep an eye and ear out for rogue explosions.
I’m Eve Troeh for Marketplace.
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