Please Don’t Light the World On Fire this Fourth of July
And other reflections
A note: This week’s newsletter, as always, is what is on my mind this week. I’ll admit, though, that these summer-break-holiday-week-childcareless days have made for a bit of a challenge to work and write anything at all in the middle of being a “snack bitch” (a term my friends lovingly coined referring to their/our role of constantly holding and/or preparing snacks for our children).
Yet amidst the constant imploring of “I’m hungry!” in between the various out-of-the-house summer activities, I did it, I wrote this. And while I usually try to tie each story to the larger issues, this one is a bit more of a preaching to the choir-like rant. It is authentic in that it is where I’m at in my head at the moment. This feels as appropriate for this newsletter as the ones where I do a bit more research and connecting of the dots.
In any case, I hope you are also doing well amidst all of the summer things. And I hope you enjoy this even if you do like fireworks ;) — don’t worry I won’t judge you if you do, just please don’t light the world on fire.
The American love of self-congratulatory birthday pyrotechnics feels almost metaphoric to the country’s general obsession with guns. What other way would we celebrate a birthday than to treat dangerous devices with casual flippancy, often involving alcohol? I know, fireworks can be so cool and so fun (and I honestly do love the big shows), but tell me you haven’t seen multiple videos of people sitting dangerously close to said explosives only for things to go all wrong. You know the ones–where instead of being shot up, the fireworks shoot out, out toward the crowd of neighborhood onlookers. And given the statistics on the number of July 4th-related fireworks injuries, it’s clear these videos are just a snapshot (and potentially the less harrowing vision) of what occurs during the couple weeks before the holiday.
And sure, not all fireworks displays are going to be the alcohol-laden neighborhood variety. Many are displays put on by local municipalities or organizations in a highly controlled setting where the pyrotechnics are handled by professionals. But even these have their issues, particularly for air quality in places that are already being impacted by wildfire smoke from Canada and Colorado and other states.
What I’m most worried about during this Independence Day, though, is the potential for firework-induced wildfire. I suppose I have more trust in the big municipal displays and the professionals determining their safety. I’m very much less trustful of these individual displays. With every boom we’re already hearing, I picture embers floating down onto the quite dry vegetation, made even more so from the very hot and early summer here in the Pacific Northwest. And then I picture such vegetation smoldering and then bursting into flames that will then grow and grow into a massive wildfire.
This vision is not unfounded. The booms remind me very much of the 2017 Eagle Creek fire where teenagers lit and threw fireworks into a tinderbox-like canyon on a popular hike in the Columbia River Gorge a half-hour or so from Portland. Almost immediately a fire began to burn and very soon after was out of control, trapping a number of hikers who had only planned on a day trip (who did eventually escape another way through the area by way of a not-just-a-day-hike distance) and then went on to burn over 48,000 acres. Sidenote: REI’s Wildfire podcast goes more deeply into that fire overlaid with the history of U.S. forest and fire management practices.
As such, it baffles me that others don’t have the same kind of anxiety around these things as I do. But also, it baffles me that people don’t see the urgency of the climate crisis that I do. So along those lines, I don’t imagine that all people will be connecting the dots between climate change-induced dry conditions and the threat of fireworks to light up these very dry places.
Of course, in the wake of such fireworks-related disasters—and the trauma these cause for kids, pets, and veterans of war—places like Portland have permanently banned any type of firework. Nonetheless, you can buy them elsewhere and despite that ban, we’ve been hearing fireworks go off every day this past week. There are always workarounds.
Nonetheless, I’m sure this post is merely just a practice of preaching to the choir. But if it’s not, then maybe I’ve planted a seed.
With that, I implore you to just be careful and don’t (let others) light the world on fire this Fourth of July!
An end note:
I’ll say this, I still do love a big, grand fireworks display. When in Baltimore, we’d make our way up to our neighbor’s rooftop deck to view both the July 4th and New Years’ displays and one truly spectacular fireworks display in 2014 at the conclusion of the three-year bicentennial celebration of the War of 1812. We’d “oooh” and “aaah,” and in that particularly memorable one in 2014, we’d talk for a few days about the “truly amazing image of the American flag” depicted across the sky in fireworks.
Yet, I always felt a little weird about the truly outlandish displays of nationalism in pyrotechnic form. The nationalism in the U.S. always felt a little over-the-top to me which came to a crescendo on July 4th.
Of course, learning of Frederick Douglass’ speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” (that I learned about way later than I should have—I know I’m not alone there) confirmed why it always felt so strange. And so, I’ll leave you with Frederick Douglass’ words as we think about yet another anniversary of this day of “independence”:
“I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Our high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”
Happy 4th July, Elizabeth.