Group launches campaign against consumer fireworks

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, July 3, 2003 | 9:19 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A national coalition of doctor and firefighter groups has launched a campaign to eliminate all consumer fireworks, including sparklers.

Calls for fireworks bans have grown in recent years, according to fire safety groups, and this year The National Fire Protection Association for the first time mobilized five other prominent groups in Washington to call for a ban: the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the International Fire Marshals Association and the National Association of State Fire Marshals.

"These are preventable injuries and preventable fires," National Fire Prevention Association spokeswoman Margie Coloian said.

The Clark County Fire Department has not taken a stance on the total ban proposal, spokesman Robert Leinbach said.

But every year, Fourth of July holiday fireworks mean more work for the department and a spike in injuries and fires, Leinbach said. The department has responded to five calls since Sunday in which property was damaged by fireworks-related fires. The damage, estimated at $57,500, is already worse than the last two years combined, Leinbach said. On Sunday juveniles playing with fireworks in a semi-trailer destroyed the trailer.

Early Tuesday, a young man was burned on more than 70 percent of his body after trying to light fireworks with lighter fluid on Deer Lodge Lane, near Cheyenne Avenue at Fort Apache Road, Lt. Tim Szymanski, Las Vegas Fire and Rescue fire department officials said.

Forty-three states including Nevada allow some or all types of the consumer fireworks allowed under federal law, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association. Seven states ban them outright: Arizona, Deleware, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island.

Fireworks laws in Nevada are set by counties. Clark County allows some of the fireworks that carry the "Safe and Sane" logo, a seal issued by the state of California. The legal fireworks are mostly sparklers and spark-emitting products that do not rocket into the sky or produce loud explosions.

Other counties, including neighboring Nye, allow the sale of flashier fireworks, and its unknown how many fireworks are brought into Clark County illegally.

Fire investigators believe the fireworks that ultimately destroyed the semi-trailer were not approved for use in Clark County, even though they carried a "Safe and Sane" logo.

The doctor and firefighter groups are urging people to enjoy July 4 at public fireworks displays and they are asking people to avoid all types of consumer fireworks, Colleen Horn, spokeswoman for the emergency physicians group, said.

The national fire marshals' group and the National Fire Protection Association go a step further -- lobbying for a federal law that bans consumer fireworks use. That includes a holiday standby: the sparkler.

Sparklers, which can burn at 2,000-degrees Fahrenheit, are among the leading causes of fireworks injuries, said Don Bliss, president of the National Association of State Fire Marshals.

"Sparklers tend to land on kids' laps or skin," New Hampshire Fire Marshal Bliss said. "Kids invariably wave them and throw them around."

Bliss noted that opposition to a fireworks ban among some of the public is intense. The fireworks industry is also mobilized against a ban, he said.

Fireworks industry officials say a ban is unnecessary. They point to U.S. Consumer Produce Safety Commission statistics indicating firework-related injuries are down, from 12,000 in 1990 to 8,800 last year. At the same time, fireworks use has increased from 29 million pounds in 1976 to 190 million pounds in 2002, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association, the industry's leading trade group.

The doctor and firefighter groups have already lost the battle with the public -- people want legal fireworks, said Julie Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association. That's reflected in the fact that five states since 1995 have loosened laws to allow more fireworks, she said.

"They could do far more good by joining the team to put out a far stronger safety message," Heckman said.

Heckman noted that a number of consumer products cause more injuries than fireworks, including barbeque grills.

The national groups advocating a ban say the declining injury rate is not much consolation. Coloian said that every year injuries include incidents of severed fingers, blindness and severe burns on faces and extremities.

"I would still maintain that any time you have 9,500 emergency room visits (in 2001), that you still have a real serious problem," Coloian said. "And the injuries are horrific. To me this just isn't a risk worth taking."

A fireworks ban is probably a good idea, said Tom Higgins, an emergency room doctor at University Medical Center and a member of the American College of Emergency Physicians. Higgins said he has seen a number of mostly minor finger and eye injuries over the years. He said he had not considered the issue until the national group got behind the campaign, but he said a ban could "dramatically reduce the number of injuries."

"I don't have any at home," Higgins, the father of young children, said.

Fireworks cause more fires on July 4 than all other fire causes combined, Coloian noted.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission sets federal regulations on fireworks, although some states obviously have adopted even stricter rules. The commission's federal rules allow fireworks like fire crackers, bottle rockets and Roman candles, but not larger fireworks like M-80s and cherry bombs.

"Fireworks carry risk," CPSC spokesman Ken Giles said. "But so do a lot of other products. What we are saying is that the riskiest fireworks are off the market."

Giles added another safety tip long advocated by the CPSC: "Little kids, especially those under 5, have no business handling any fireworks, including sparklers. It's always amazing to me that parents will hand a little kid a lit sparkler."