Fire officials give tips on how to stay safe when handling fireworks

SALISBURY, Md. – July 4th is quickly approaching and with that comes an up-tick in the number of people using fireworks.

We spoke with fire officials today about how you can celebrate safely.

“The best way to stay safe is probably to seek out a public fireworks display, they’re all across Delmarva, they’re usually free and obviously that’s the safest thing to do,” said Fire Marshal Eric Cramer.

However, if you’re determined to have your own fireworks display, officials encourage you to buy your fireworks in the state of Maryland.

“Don’t go across state lines and buy them in Virginia or another state and bring them up from South Carolina because they may not meet the state laws of Maryland, you can end up getting in trouble, getting arrested, charged with shooting illegal fireworks as well as they’re often more dangerous,” said Salisbury Fire Chief Rob Frampton.

Frampton said calls about fireworks mishaps vary from year to year.

“Some years we don’t have any and then other years we’ll have two or three in the area, not always people getting injured or hurt, but sometimes it will start a brush fire or something like that depending if we’ve had a lot of rain or if it’s dry and hot like it is right now,” he said.

Frampton said when lighting fireworks, it’s good to have a bucket of water on hand to dispose of them.

And – if you light a firework and it doesn’t ignite and go off, Frampton says you shouldn’t approach it or try to relight it.

Cramer also has a warning about hand-held sparklers.

“I just want to remind everyone those things burn at 2,000 degrees and they can cause significant injury to people, as well as they can ignite fires, so even though they seem benign the hand-held sparklers require constant adult supervision all the time,” said Cramer.

Fire officials also stress the importance of keeping kids away from fireworks displays and to avoid drug and alcohol use while handling fireworks.