Fireworks. It doesn’t matter how old or mature one is, everybody loves fireworks. For me the passion was always there, just in a less destructive form. I have very fond memories of being allowed, by my parents, to light fireworks on the fourth of each July. Little did I know, this passion would soon turn into a disaster. Well, almost a disaster.
It was December of 2007 when I got the fateful call from a good friend, Sam, in the evening after dinner. He told me that he had a box of fireworks to get rid of, asking if I was able to help with his “predicament.”
“Of course!” was my default response, escaping my lips before I even had time to call it to question. So we made plans to meet up at the local WaWa gas station later that night.
Well, that time rolled around and with it—as would later come to my attention—came my old pal mischief. This may have been the night I began believing in Murphy’s Law. We met at the prearranged location along with some friends from our high school, Ian and Dan, much to my surprise. Once the usual chit-chat subsided we were off, in three separate cars—our first errata.
We pulled in to a neighborhood which had clearly just begun construction. The roads were finished, along with three or four houses, but there wasn’t much else. As Sam drove us through the residential streets looking for our citadel-de-mischief we encountered several round-a-bouts. Our second errata was not leaving to search out a different location as soon as we saw these obnoxious, law-enforcement-helping, European tragedies. Sam turned his minivan right, onto a dirt road, which we soon found out led to a path, which led to a pond. Not small nor large, this is the exact pond you would think of as the centerpiece of a nice (see: white) suburban neighborhood.
We parked the car next to the path and got out. Ian and Dan pulled up next to us. After grabbing all of the fireworks from the back seat we set out down the path. Arriving at the river, we set up shop. It was all fun and games at first; the typical teenager style of doing fireworks. You know, lighting bottle rockets in our hands and throwing them out over the river where, if we got lucky, they would plunge to their ultimate demise under the surface of this murky pond. We also discovered that if the fireworks were set off at a low enough angle relative to the surface of the water they would skip just like rocks over a lake. And so it went for, oh, about six fireworks or so, which I do realize is not many. It was that seventh rocket that sent our night into a frenzy.
This rocket was not your typical “bottle rocket.” No, this was a rocket rocket. Like a bite-sized version of one you might see NASA launch. Me and Sam decided to set up a small ramp for this one. The plan was for it to launch, fly up the ramp we had built, and go as far into the night sky as possible. Except our plan failed when it went just a little bit too far. We didn’t know it at first…at first it was cool. The small rocket flew over the pond at about twenty to thirty feet in the air—not too high. It went all the way into the forest that surrounded the pond and exploded into a shower of green sparks. We all cheered and pumped our fists. Just then a spark shot up from the forest floor. Then another. After the second I could have sworn I saw a small flame dancing in the distance.
“Yep, it’s getting bigger,” I said. We all agreed that there was only one thing to do in this situation. Run. No, we didn’t run to the fire to put it out, and yes, I know that is what we should have done, but what the hell did we know? We were just a couple of high school seniors. We ran back down the path that led to our cars. We threw the fireworks in the back seat once more and took off like Batman out of his cave. We decided to meet up back in my neighborhood at Festival Park.
It took about five minutes to get to Festival and we all just stood by our cars (mine was still at WaWa) and talked about what had just happened. We then agreed we should do another of those rockets. Right where we were, in my neighborhood. What could happen, right? So this time we prepare the cars—open the doors, face them towards the street, and start the engines. Me and Ian are picked to light this one, so we go do our thing. As soon as it lights we sprint to our cars and begin to drive away, as we look back through the windows at the beautiful and extremely loud explosion of color that takes place about one-hundred feet up in the navy blue sky.
We meet once again at WaWa, where Ian and Dan tell us that they are going to meet up with some girls. That’s fine, me and Sam are just going to drive by the pond and make sure the fire went out. It hadn’t. As we pulled parallel to the pond, on the main road with the round-a-bouts, not yet even making the effort to turn up the dirt road, we could see everything was not OK. The fire was about 100-200 yards long (1-2 football fields) and it’s tall flames were easily visible from the street.
After a short debate of whether or not to call 911, we decided to skip the call and go straight to our houses, praying that the prediction for rain the next day was accurate. At this point we each had our own cars so we parted ways, both of us checking the local fire dispatch channels as soon as we got home. “Please don’t let anyone die in that fire,” is all I kept thinking.
The next morning I immediately checked CNN.com after getting out of bed. The top headline read, “Man Dies in Forest Fire.” Oh my God, I’m a murderer. After glancing over the article I realized that this man had been killed in California. OK, my heart can continue beating again. It rained later that afternoon.
Two weeks after we started the uncontrollable fire we decided to go back and check out it’s damage. Much to our surprise it hadn’t climbed or destroyed any trees. It had only scorched the ground and reached about one foot up the base of each tree. Talk about lucky.
