Things You Should Do (and Don’t) When Transporting and Storing Your Legal Fireworks

Fireworks aren’t only for holidays. You may want to use fireworks for an event, special occasion, as a backdrop or to put on a show. However, if you’re going to use legal fireworks in any capacity, it’s important that you know how to take care of them before the time comes to use them.

Properly transporting and storing your fireworks will ensure there are no accidents and that your fireworks will perform as expected when the time comes.

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Don’t Neglect the Law

Before you do anything regarding fireworks, you need to know your state and local laws regarding them. Not all locales have the same tolerance for fireworks. Even in places where most consumer-grade fireworks aren’t illegal, the state may still have laws concerning how you can transport or store the fireworks.

Also, local ordinances might exist that dictate how you can store your fireworks and where. For these and other legal reasons, make sure you’re on the right side of the law when dealing with fireworks.

Do Purchase Your Fireworks from a Reputable Seller

Think about it. Before the fireworks get to you, they must go through an initial transportation and storage process. You’ll want to buy fireworks online from a reputable seller that takes care of their fireworks every step of the way.

Of course, unless you make some deep inquiries, you’re not going to know exactly how a fireworks seller procures, ships, stores, and maintains their fireworks. For this reason, you should only order from a good seller with an excellent track record, as that takes all the guesswork out.

The pop-up corner store fireworks emporium might look alright, but you need to show care when choosing where you buy fireworks.

Don’t Let Your Fireworks Ride Shotgun

When moving your fireworks between locations, you should not have them in the seat next to you or in any passenger area of a vehicle. Put your fireworks in the trunk. If you don’t have a trunk, put the fireworks into a lidded, nonsparking container. Nonsparking means the container consists of materials that cannot cause a spark, such as hard rubber.

Before placing fireworks in your vehicle, remove all combustible materials. Make sure the fireworks aren’t close to any heat source. Secure your fireworks so they don’t move around. Keep a fire extinguisher in the car.

Do Store Your Fireworks Properly

You will need to store your fireworks ahead of the occasion. If you’re taking them home, create a designated space for them that’s cool and dry. Make sure the storage space is somewhere young children or pets can’t easily access.

Ideally, you want to store your fireworks outside of any place where people live. A shed or garage can work, but no matter where you place them, keep them covered. If humidity is an issue, you can wrap the fireworks and seal them tightly in plastic.

Don’t Play with Fire or Water

Whether you’re transporting your fireworks or storing them, avoid having any type of flame or heat source anywhere by them. Don’t smoke around the fireworks, don’t casually flick your BIC, and don’t sit them by the furnace or on anything electrical. Do nothing that might ignite what’s essentially a bunch of explosives in your home or another place of storage.

Water can also become a problem for fireworks. This includes water in all its forms, from moisture to humidity, to rain, and any other type of precipitation. Just like with heat sources, keep your fireworks away from water or sources of moisture.

As you can probably imagine, moisture can ruin fireworks. Water can also make fireworks misbehave. For this reason, you should not set off any fireworks if you notice water damage to them. Dispose of them instead.

Do Understand Fireworks Have a Shelf Life

Fireworks don’t keep their efficacy forever. Gunpowder can grow unstable over time. Ideally, use what you have for the occasion you have them for, and discard the leftovers.

However, if you need or want to continue storing your fireworks, you should know they’re only good for about two or three years. And you only get those years if you store the fireworks properly that entire time.

At most, you should only keep fireworks for about a year. If you don’t use them at that time, it’s probably best to get rid of them. If you’re discarding fireworks, soak them in a bucket of water for fifteen at least, and overnight if you want to be thorough. Put them in their own plastic trash bag before depositing them into the garbage.

Fireworks require care and respect. You shouldn’t have a huge problem moving them, storing them, or using them for whatever activity you have planned. Keep safety foremost and everything else will work out fine.

If in doubt about how to move or store your fireworks, ask the professionals you bought them from. They will have information for you specific to the fireworks they sell, which will help you even more.

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