“Then They Lit A Roman Candle”: Your Best Fireworks Horror Stories

The blog Adequate Man solicited best fireworks stories from its readers and posted some of the best. I'm not going to post them directly because, naturally, they're not all clean, but I will quote the first one to give you an idea of the kinds of things in the posts.

In 2004 my friend and I drove to Pennsylvania to load up on about $300 worth of fireworks. We didn’t know much about them but bought the heavier things available, including some mortar shells (which shoot up and make a real firework in the sky) and the tube to shoot them out of. We went to my friend’s lake house for our usual 4th BBQ, and had been drinking all day. The sun went down, and it was go time. We grabbed a mortar, shoved it in the tube, and lit the fuse. NOTHING HAPPENED. What we didn’t realize was the tube was pre-loaded, and another mortar was jammed in there now. My friend grabbed the tube to investigate, and as soon as he picked it up, both mortars exploded and shot out, INTO THE BOX OF FIREWORKS. We had a 10-second window to panic, but we didn’t even think to do that. The entire box was on fire, and the ensuing explosions were like WWIII shooting past everyone’s heads, pelting the houses, and nearly setting the trees on fire. We ducked under cars and the dogs jumped in the lake.

My friend’s face and chest were bloody and soot covered, and his hand was burned and numb, but no permanent damage. The next-door neighbor threw a punch at him and called the sheriff. I highly recommend setting a box of fireworks on fire all at once.

It's not the best, but it's clean.


Anyhow, before we all go and blow stuff up darn good 'cause 'Murica (Happy 4th), I hope some of you at least enjoy the stories.

They remind me of the time my cousin and I spent an afternoon gleefully stuffing firecrackers into a old tractor because it made the wasps who had a nest inside it come boiling out. We'd laugh and run screaming while they boiled out angrily. Then we'd wait and go back and set off another one. How we managed not to get stung. I don't know.

a reply to: ketsuko

I only have one story and let's start this off light..

I found a firecracker in my bedroom, which should have been impossible as I didn't even know what one was.
It looked like a candle? But I kind of knew it would be fun to light.

The wick on it was about say 1.5 inches. I grab a lighter, from somewhere.. I go outside, and make my brother come with me, as I was always the one to start things, ha.

I light the end, an. as I am lighting it I can tell I have no time... I open my hand, turn my head, just enough so the blast goes off into my ear BOOM! It only fell about a foot, before exploding..

Dude, what in the world.. Shouldn't I have had at least a second.. My ears were ringing for days.

a reply to: ketsuko

We used to remove the midge doors(Bin house) among other things to build our Bonfire so when the fire got a little low we would go get some more doors and through them on the fire in such a way that we could run over the doors. Thing is the doors burn through and one of my friends had the misfortune of his foot going through as he attempted to make his run. Lets just say his Timberlands saved his foot all through the burns sustained were particularly nasty. Different times and stupid crazy wanes we most certainly were.

It was New Year's and my cousin and I were young and foolish guys. We had been to another state and bought a fortune's worth of fireworks. A lot were Roman Candles.We decided it would be cool to go outside and play duel with them. We both grabbed our coats and a lighter and went outside. For a while it was fun . With those different color balls of fire whizzing past our ears , etc. Until one went inside my open coat. The inside happened to be wool. It blazed up immediately . Learned an important life lesson that night.

a reply to: ketsuko

Back in the days (uk) Air bomb repeaters actualy worked
and bangers were still legal, you know the type you lit and threw.

I procured a pack and took 1 apart.
Halfway down the tube was a hole which I knew was a gas vent.
I noticed there was room for more powder so I filled that gap with grounded match heads
and covered the hole with card and superglue.

I lit it in the back garden and threw it.
It only went about 4ft in front of me.
I thought oh shooot this is close. I had no where to move.

So I crouched down ass in the air, head in my arms against the back door.

BAAANG...The most painful feeling went up my ring piece and my scrotum.
I danced around the garden with 1 hand on my anus and the other on my scrotum.

After I finished dancing around the garden and the pain subsided
I seen it was the chalky stuff they block the ends with that caused that searing pain.

I didnt do that again in a hurry lol.
Until later.....

I was younger and my cousin and I were cruising a back country road tossing jumping jacks out the window there the ones that shoot flames out of one end and spin around they come in packs of 25 like a pack of fire crackers. anyway im in the back seat tossing them out the Window . So my cousin thinks it would be funny to roll the power windows up in the back after i lite one so i couldnt get it out the window then roll it down right before it goes off well i didnt lite just 1, I lite A whole pack and he doesnt let the window down in time after i have them lit. I get 3 rd degree burns on my fingers and hand and second in verious other places on my body and my cousins car burnt to the ground instant karma lol. I survived no lasting damage just very painful for a long time moral of this story no pranks when it comes to fireworks it can turn out bad.

a reply to: Gothmog

We also had "Roman candle wars". One time my friend lit one and thought it was a dud so he threw it down on the ground.
I saw it was just starting to ignite, so I grabbed it. I already had one going, so I chased him down the block with a Roman candle in each hand, flaming balls raining down on him.

Talk about young and stupid!

I remember another one:

One year, the whole family took the fireworks out to my grandparents' place to set them off. This particular year, we had purchased several Roman Candle-like things called "Buzzy Bees." We had no idea what they were. Turns out someone had riffed on Roman Candles by putting Jumping Jacks in there instead of the usual fireballs. This had the side effect of making them highly unpredictable. I think anyone who's ever lit Jumping Jacks knows, they are prone to randomly haring off in any old direction they feel like and sometimes flying off into the wild blue yonder for no apparent reason.

Now imagine your Roman Candles shooting buzzing balls of fire that are flying any and everywhere they feel like.

Oh yeah! That was enormously fun ... right up until one targeted grandpa's back pocket. Now mind you, my grandfather at this point was NOT young and had two very, very bad knees (as in needing replacement and he was holding out out of sheer cussedness). I did not know the man could run that fast or jump that high.

And we never shot fireworks at the farm again.

a reply to: ketsuko

I had a blockbuster bounce off my back
before exploding.
Some idiot lit and tossed it my way.
Kid Stuff.

We used to fire rockets from tubes, bits of scaffold and such. A buddy of mine used a length of copper pipe. Apparently, it wasn't thick enough. After the rocket shot out, he started flailing and banging his hands together. He got it off pretty quick, but the pipe had got so hot, it had practically fused to his hand. He was in a lot of pain, but it's all good. He seemed to take comfort in the fact he no fingerprints on one hand, like he inadvertedly became a left-handed criminal mastermind or something.

We used to take old cardboard tubes and make bazookas that shot bottle rockets. The whistler kind were the best. That was tame though...

One year we were shooting roman candles in the cul de sac after school. It hadn't rained for awhile so a lot of the brush was dry. Anyway, we shot a few and didn't think much about it. About five minutes later, we smell something burning. Apparently we didn't see one of the fireballs land in a bush in front of a neighbor's house. It basically burned an entire row of hedges down. We some how managed to stomp the fire out but it left the hedges scorched. The neighbor had a real surprise when they got home. We never got in trouble and I'm sure the guy was wondering wtf happened to his hedges. LOL.

Another year, we decided to make out own fireworks. We sat in the cul de sac and must of have emptied the gun powder out of several hundred black cat firecrackers. We got a cardboard tube from toilet paper and some duct tape. We built one big azz firecracker. It is miracle I'm still alive. The fuse burnt quicker than we anticipated and we only got about 10 or 15 feet away before it exploded, the concussion literally knock us off our feet and had our ears ringing for a week.

We also used to blow up ant hills. Yellow Jacket nests.

Kids these days have no sense of adventure.

a reply to: ketsuko

When I was about 16, I had a friend who was an idiot. Ok, to be honest we were all idiots back then...But this guy particularly. We had just got a bunch of fireworks one 4th of July, and my friend decided it would be a good idea to shoot bottle rockets out of my car as we drove home. He shot a couple off with no problem...The third one was a different story. Somehow he managed to miss the half opened window entirely, and hit glass instead. The bottle rocket ricocheted around my car like much like when Han shot at the door inside the trash compactor from Star Wars


Not sure how I didn't manage to crash....

a reply to: bhornbuckle75

yeah. Those were the days... The ensuing police calls and emergency room stops are as much of the reason as anything else for the fact that the 4th just ain't the fun day it used to be because that heavy duty stuff was made illegal.

But these days, there is always beer.

a reply to: Aliensun

For some reason, I think this:



Suits the general tone of the thread and your last comment. Just pretend they added some fireworks mayhem in for the "and stuff" bits.

a reply to: ketsuko

I have a few and it's hard for me to determine the best. You be the judge.

One year my friends and I got a lot of fireworks. I'm talking bottle rockets, roman candles, and the kind that go BOOM. Well, we're shooting them at each other because we were drunk and it sounded like a good time. Fiery stuff is flying all over. We're ducking and launching stuff back. One a bottle rocket even blew up on my chest.

One time we had bottle rockets and we're driving around in the back of a pick up. I'd cut the end off a plastic baseball bat and we were launching the rockets out of it and into the sky. Well, we all agreed that we'd better stop since we were getting close to the city limits. My one friend decided that one more wouldn't hurt. We got pulled over right then and there. The cops come up and one says, "You guys have a problem? We saw your flares." My brother is all but crapping his pants and all he can say is "Oh crap oh crap oh crap" (Not that but it starts with SH) and he assumed the position against the truck. The cops are laughing their asses off and messing with him big time. Asking if he'd been drinking, the whole routine. Really, everything but the drunk walk. We got off without a fine but they took our stuff. They thought they did, anyway. We had more stashed away that they didn't find.

In 2010 my brother, sister in law, sister and her then boyfriend, and I got fireworks. Some of these were mortars. We started lighting them off and before long it looked like a war was taking place in the street. My sister's then boyfriend kicked a mortar over and flaming balls were shooting at my brother and I and exploding. Flames are shooting everywhere. We're screaming. Things are going BOOM all around us. Then he let go with another. Some even went under cars. I never said the guy was smart. I'm surprised we had eyebrows when it was all over. When the last one was shot off there was a big pile of spent fireworks. Don't worry, we cleaned it all up.

I forgot one. My friends and I had just gotten a big bag of fireworks and decided to go to the lake before going to our buddy's house where we would set them off. My one friend couldn't wait and starts launching bottle rockets out the car window. That was funny as hell until one blew into the back window and exploded right between my friend and I-right on the bag of fireworks. Lucky for us nothing else went boom.

Oh, another. We were doing our usual stupid stuff and launching stuff at each other. When we were done we all sat around the bonfire. I was drunk and decided it would be cool to go fire walking. I stepped right into the fire and walked around in it. The flames were up to my waist. I was getting really hot, as you can imagine, and decided to walk out the other side. When I got out I put my hand in the pocket of my trench coat that I wore then for a smoke. What I pulled out instead was a handful of fireworks. BOOM BOOMS. I am so lucky that none went off.

We had an annual fireworks show a friend would do every year with about $3,000 of works. He would spend a day or two gluing it all and fusing it on 4'x8' sheets of plywood so you could light it and let it go on. We had to run around and find a baseball park avoiding the cops the whole time to set them off safely and have stands for the people er...drunks.

Anyway, last time out my friend went over to make sure they had all gone off just about the time the police and fire dept. showed up. He looked over a mortar tube just the moment it went off. Slow fuse inside. It shot him right in the eye. He wore safety glasses, but that only saved the eye. He injured it pretty bad and was transported by fire rescue. Thing is he had been doing this 25 years with no mishaps. But, when he had one it was in full view of everyone including the police and fire personnel. Timing was epic! His eye is ok.

Be safe, don't run up on a slow fuse and give it a minute in case it is still slow burning inside!

a reply to: ketsuko

Here's one of mine - We had a friend who's 4th-of-July parties were somewhat well known: The party was always an over-nighter, and usually involved a lot of drinking, swimming, and card-playing (as well as pranks on those too drunk to remember what happened).

And what 4th of July party doesn't include fireworks? Their show was musically timed with about $5,000 worth of fireworks (excluding the tiny bottle rockets). Well, as usual, many people were taking the bottle rockets and launching them from their hands. One particular person, who wasn't exactly thinking clearly, lit his bottle rocket. It didn't explode in his hand, but went shooting straight out like a bazooka projectile - in a straight path toward the barge that was taking the load of fireworks out to the launch site!

Fortunately, the firework landed in his lake, a couple feet from the barge. After several upside smacks to said person, we all still got to enjoy the show.

And the other one: At the time, fireworks that shot into the air were technically illegal (this included flaming balls as well). We went to Ohio, and bought some that we weren't familiar with: Well, we were the only ones on the street launching these off, and this time around, two things happened:

1. One of the fireworks was supposed to shoot a series of balls into the air, no noise. Well, instead of shooting up, there must have been a rip in the package, because this firework was spinning on the ground, shooting on the ground.

2. Our "finale" was a really big one - we thought it was going to be a fountain only...But it turned out, every shot would go off with a cannon sound, whistling, and then followed by a huge explosion. The final stage was several explosions clustered at once. After it was done, the only thing my Dad said was: "Oops"; sure enough, we had to hide the evidence, because the cops came rolling up about a half-hour later to see which person was dumb enough to launch that kind of thing in the suburbs.

-foss

-foss