Where else has too many fireworks right now

June 11, 2020 5:16 PM

My city (on the north side of the East Bay in California) has been experiencing unusually loud, unusually frequent fireworks over the last few weeks (our local Facebook group HATES it), and I've been seeing mentions of the same thing here and there over twitter and in articles like this one about Boston. I was wondering if this is also happening anywhere else? Are there any other articles being written about it?
posted by bleep to Society & Culture (51 answers total)

Hello from Boston. Yes, fireworks have increased 2300%. Yes, I also thought that was a fake number, but it’s really not. Every. Damn. Night. 8pm to 3am. They must be those new self-generating kind because there is no way there could possibly have any leftover otherwise with the amount they have been setting off SINCE EARLY MAY.
posted by floweredfish at 5:29 PM on June 11, 2020 [4 favorites]

I hear random fireworks every now and then in my suburban Toronto neighbourhood. Nothing sustained though.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:39 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

likewise in my east-end Toronto neighbourhood. Friday nights are particularly mad.
posted by scruss at 5:41 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

Yes. Every night for the past week. Portland, OR. Lots of very angry people on Nextdoor (more than usual). We may finally be at a tipping point.
posted by nanook at 5:44 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

So many fireworks in Providence RI for the last month or so. Like, usually there's a lot of fireworks in my neighborhood all summer but it is sooo much worse this year. Every single night for hours. Yesterday-- a Wednesday-- people were setting them off at 10am.
posted by geegollygosh at 5:51 PM on June 11, 2020

It's firecracker city here on the lower west side of Chicago, and it feels like a lot because it's genuinely a lot, every night, for hours and hours into the AMs. They started at 4:30 today (though it's really light at the moment).

But if I'm being honest with myself this is just always how June is (and all summer long) in my neck of the woods. Every Memorial Day all the neighbors drag out their howitzers and go to town. It feels like more because it's the start of noise season, but at least where I am this is normal.
posted by phunniemee at 5:52 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

Absolutely Yes in my LA suburb! It was all over the mom Facebook groups. Like why now, why these past few weeks especially, can they not can it.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 5:54 PM on June 11, 2020

I'm in Richmond, CA (perhaps where you are bleep) and it's a nightmare. I have an elderly cat with a bad sweet heart and he jolts at every boom.
posted by quarterframer at 5:56 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Yep, fireworks at least for the past two weeks in my Philadelphia neighborhood, ever since the weather turned warm. There was a big push over the past few years to legalize fireworks in a bunch of states that I’m sure is contributing.
posted by Automocar at 5:57 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

NW side of Chicago here. Fireworks have always been a constant summer sound, but it has definitely started earlier this year and it’s more sustained each night. My wife and I also wonder how they can be going off ALL THE TIME. Were people breaking the lockdown order to buy fireworks? Or are there just basements that are literal powder kegs full of stockpiled fireworks?
posted by photovox at 5:58 PM on June 11, 2020

Around E. Houston and 1st or so, fireworks keep going off. Like genuine bursters of color. It's quite striking because NOT AT ALL SAFE.
posted by praemunire at 6:13 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Hello neighbor bleep. Is it that these fools don’t understand why adding a wildfire to this here situation might be bad timing? I keep trying to muster the courage to stomp over there and start yelling but I know that won’t help. It’s so, so, dry here.
posted by pipoquinha at 6:31 PM on June 11, 2020 [4 favorites]

I think part of why it's so noticeable in my Boston neighborhood is the traffic and people volume is so low. But yeah, so many fireworks.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:36 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

People flipping out in Hartford CT about the nightly firework fests that start in the early evening and can run past midnight. Lots of unhappy people and animals.
posted by victoriab at 6:46 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Chiming in from Sacramento...
posted by lovableiago at 6:57 PM on June 11, 2020

Chiming in from Sacramento...I noticed an uptick back when the lockdown really started. I’m assuming people are bored but it’s annoying as %#*$.
posted by lovableiago at 6:59 PM on June 11, 2020

I'm in West Oakland and there's lots down here too.
posted by ananci at 6:59 PM on June 11, 2020

Philly: I haven't heard them, but Next Door has complained about what some think are fireworks, gunshots, those boomy things that apparently The Man drives around doing to deter people from being outside, etc.
posted by Pax at 6:59 PM on June 11, 2020

We have had them in the DC suburbs too. The speculation on the local listserve is that they are from graduation parties. It’s too far from DC to be related to the protests.
posted by sizeable beetle at 7:07 PM on June 11, 2020

It's in in-town DC as well! And unfortunately it's in the neighborhoods that are having the worst problems with gunfire/shootings right now, so it's not good for anybody's psyche.
posted by mccxxiii at 7:18 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

El Cerrito, and yes, and also *during the day*. Like, wildfire and drought and scaring pets and traumatizing people issues aside, why are you wasting your fireworks at 4 in the afternoon? (We know they're not gunshots. Too much bass.)
posted by Pandora Kouti at 7:23 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

In Baltimore, a bunch of fireworks went off literally right as I just opened this post.
posted by advil at 8:01 PM on June 11, 2020

My southern part of SF (Excelsior area-ish) is always a summer firework hotspot but it's usually relegated to the first week of July and if and when the warriors/giants win. Or lose. Or tie. Or play. Or are talked about. Like it's a thing, but not *all* the time. But holy shit this year it's been non-stop. For sure started with the stay-at-home-orders. In my part of the Bay Area the fire risk isn't as bad but still- it's been hot and dry and I keep hoping no embers stray into our local park. Glad my beloved pooch is no longer with us- poor scared doofus would have chewed up the couch by now ten times over.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:17 PM on June 11, 2020

Some of them may be flashbangs, which sound a lot like fireworks (some are a high pitched whine, some are a boom, and some are a boom followed by a sizzle like you'd hear in a firework).
posted by zug at 8:25 PM on June 11, 2020

Downstate IL has more than normal for the past month too. Great question; it seems so obvious in retrospect. Everyone is literally releasing pent-up energy!
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:39 PM on June 11, 2020

Yeah lots in Oakland. I think it's partly because it's simply a lot, lot quieter on the streets with the shelter in place so they're more obvious. It doesn't strike me as particularly unusual - unless it's the police shooting flashbangs, which don't really sound the same.

It doesn't really bother me but I grew up in a place with year round fireworks stands, I know Californians aren't used to it. What has been bothering me is the seagulls! Never knew they were so loud in my neighborhood before this.
posted by bradbane at 8:40 PM on June 11, 2020

I've been hearing a lot more since the protests started a week or so ago in mid Peninsula, Bay Area. They could be to do with graduations as well, but I first noticed them going off a lot during the couple days of curfew.
posted by col_pogo at 9:05 PM on June 11, 2020

Brooklyn: yes.
posted by jessca84 at 9:33 PM on June 11, 2020

my spouse is right now on the phone with his sister in oxnard, ca and it’s apparently happening there too.
posted by hollisimo at 9:41 PM on June 11, 2020

Just South of the Canadian Border, Washington. Scared the shit out of the cat.
posted by leafmealone at 9:59 PM on June 11, 2020

Seattle area. All quiet here. Haven't heard one in... months. New Years or so.
posted by bz at 10:18 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Here in LA, it's nightly from May to September. You can't purchase them within the City of Los Angeles, but there are neighboring cities that do. No escape.
posted by xtine at 10:20 PM on June 11, 2020

San Francisco (SE). yes - every damn night.
posted by chbrooks at 10:29 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

I live in Orange County now, so not too many fireworks (actually too few since the 365 days a year at 9:30pm Disneyland ones aren’t happening) but in Echo Park/Silver Lake fireworks season was a month on each side of New Years and 4th of July. NextDoor was just endless “Can We Not?” vs “Go back to The Valley you fucking gentrifiers!” flame wars. Sometimes people accidentally set their own trees on fire, so the “flame wars” took on a new meaning.

I guess my point is that the the decade has been pracitally never ending fireworks here in SoCal, and you can’t even buy the good stuff in this State, beyond a few Native American reservations. I think people just happen to notice more since they are stuck at home.
posted by sideshow at 10:31 PM on June 11, 2020

True further south in the bay In east SJ. Haven't seen any but the noise is there most nights.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 10:36 PM on June 11, 2020

bz lives in a different part of Seattle from me, it seems. Listening currently to someone set them off in the Central District for the 3rd? night in a row, I’ve assumed they were jealous of the fun down the street in Capitol Hill but it apparently is a whole trend!
posted by zinful at 12:11 AM on June 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

I’m in Philly and this has been happening all night, every night, since either day 1 or 2 of the riots. While “Philly explosions” has been going around as a hashtag and blaming everything else, like the ATM bombs (which were real but perhaps not responsible for many of the actual bangs), we have a roof deck and I have seen fireworks set off all over the city and across the river in NJ that corresponds 100% to the bangs when i’m up there. While random summer (well really all year) fireworks is the norm for us, they have never been constant or all over like they are now, from before sunset til well past when i go to bed. We also have an empty field a block away so some of them are LOUD.
posted by DoubleLune at 12:42 AM on June 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

Charlotte NC, six miles north of the South Carolina border where people from both states spend ungodly sums to buy highly advanced fireworks, and ... nope, it's been surprisingly quiet here. Maybe because we've had rain every night for weeks on end? I expect it to pick up the week of the 4th and continue through Labor Day, though.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 3:42 AM on June 12, 2020

Brooklyn: Yes lots, but it doesn't really feel like more than usual for this time of year. My neighborhood loves its summer firecrackers, generally.
posted by 168 at 4:14 AM on June 12, 2020

One house (I think?) in our usually dead-quiet neighborhood in Western Mass has been setting them off almost every night. Our two anxious rescue dogs basically live under the bed from like 5-9 PM now.
posted by catoclock at 8:33 AM on June 12, 2020

Savannah, GA, downtownish. Lots of them for maybe 3 weeks around Memorial Day. Now not so much.
posted by mareli at 11:02 AM on June 12, 2020

I'm in Aurora, CO (suburb of Denver). People are usually fireworks happy all summer long, despite them being illegal here (high wildfire risk) but I've noticed that it's been especially bad this year. My dog hates it and I do too! Can I please just go live on the moon?
posted by zeusianfog at 12:53 PM on June 12, 2020

Here in primarily downtown Vancouver we've had both fireworks and firecrackers, but also a spate of people using bear bangers, for some reason. The fireworks, which seemed to happen every few days in the early days of the pandemic, haven't happened for weeks.
posted by urbanlenny at 1:24 PM on June 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

*waves from East Oakland*
posted by Lexica at 2:05 PM on June 12, 2020

Fireworks every night since May 20th in the west end of Toronto. Fed up with it.
posted by dobbs at 5:27 PM on June 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

Columbus, OH and yes, they are every night, or at least were for the week on either side of Memorial Day. This week has been a little quieter. I just moved to this neighborhood 6 months ago, but the local facebook group seems to think it's more than normal. And as someone else mentioned, they were setting off the big fancy ones at 3 pm last Saturday for no apparent (visible) reason.
posted by pixiecrinkle at 5:42 PM on June 12, 2020

I hear them often these days (including earlier tonight) in New York City (northern part of Manhattan). I heard them even the week that we had a curfew, which surprised me a bit.
posted by merejane at 10:18 PM on June 12, 2020

Slate
posted by stray at 3:24 PM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

@sideshow - we also just moved to OC, and there are a LOT near us. Not "fourth of July" level, but "someone sets off three... someone else sets off two..." from around 6pm to 1am.

Sometimes I see them when walking outside, very close, but haven't yet pinpointed any houses.
posted by ®@ at 9:05 AM on June 21, 2020

Apparently they have intensified in some areas since the protests started and there are starting to be theories about why. See also Roxane Gay and the number of people responding to her that it is also happening where they are. Someone is looking for leads.

For the record, this is not happening as much in my area of downtown Vancouver anymore (West End). There were, however, fireworks after a big Juneteenth-related rally here on Friday at the same beach where the rally ended up.
posted by urbanlenny at 6:51 PM on June 21, 2020

Here in the Old West End of Toledo, we're used to fireworks going off pretty much all summer to some degree or another. However this summer the bottle rockets and firecrackers have been upgraded to insanely loud M80-style explosions. Because I can hear ALL of it now, I can't really say for sure if it is an uptick in frequency or not.
posted by charred husk at 9:42 AM on June 22, 2020