(The video above is courtesy of Brock Mento, who gave permission to include this video.)
Ah, the Fourth of July, also known as Independence Day. It is the holiday of America that represents the Declaration of Independence and the birth of independence in the nation, and it is often celebrated with fireworks.
Fireworks displays were everywhere in the nation this past Monday, and boy, they were ever so beautiful as they are every year.
But not in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
About 10 to 15 minutes into the fireworks display in Plymouth (which was at about 9:30 p.m. ET), the fireworks barge caught fire, which resulted in the show being cut short. According to sources, there were two barges in the harbor for the fireworks display, and a malfunction caused a fire on the first barge. The effect was all of the remaining shells exploding at once in all sorts of directions for about 10 minutes. About 35 minutes later, the second barge caught fire as well. The fires ultimately caused hundreds of fireworks to fall into the water.
The next day, officials said they believe the fire was caused by an exploding fireworks shell that was inside a mortar tube.
While the town is working diligently to clean up the shells as quickly as possible, Plymouth beachgoers were being warned of numerous firework shells washing up on the beach. Specifically, this was most likely to happen on Long Beach, as well as Nelson's Park, Stephen's field, and other various locations. The town stressed the importance of people not touching any fireworks they find and instead calling the police or fire department. Ed Bradley, the fire chief of Plymouth, noted that crews in Plymouth recovered a “pickup truck’s-worth” of undetonated fireworks along the coast by the next afternoon. He also said that about $35,000 worth of fireworks were prepared for the show, but only about 20 percent of this amount burst into the sky for the display before the incident occurred; the rest either burned or dropped into the water.
Although this was certainly quite a scary event, the most fortunate part of the story is that the Plymouth Police Department tweeted that there were no injuries.
