If you want to see fireworks Friday, you may have to travel to Mount Shasta.

Because the north state’s fire conditions are crazy dry and dangerous, fireworks celebrations have been canceled and/or postponed left and right. 

Extinguished fireworks include: Saturday’s Burney Basin Days fireworks (yes for Basin Days, no for fireworks.)

Anderson Explodes has been postponed until Aug. 30 (golly, when it’s even drier and hotter?). Likewise, Red Bluff’s fireworks are postponed, but not yet rescheduled. Weaverville’s Fourth of July festivities will continue, but its fireworks are postponed until fall.  

Finally, Redding’s Freedom Festival is also a goner. Yes, we’re disappointed. But dumping the fireworks this year was a wise choice, considering the north state’s ring of fire. Perhaps you noticed.

I will miss Boom Boom Productions. I will miss Larry Grandy’s band, especially when Grandy conducts on the tips of the toes of his high-top tennis shoes as his musicians play Stars and Stripes.

I will miss watching the fireworks on the Convention Center lawn with 10,000 of my dearest, closest friends.

I will not miss the added risk of yet more fires at a time when firefighters are already plenty busy.

Hey, speaking of fire risk, when will Tehama County follow Shasta County’s lead (more than 20 years ago) and create an ordinance to outlaw its “safe and sane” fireworks and even sparklers?

Safe and sane?

Make that unsafe and insane. When it comes to fireworks, it’s not as if what happens in Tehama County stays in Tehama County. 

A fire in Tehama can spread to neighboring counties. And any Shasta County yahoo can cross into Tehama County and load up on cherry bombs, snakes, spinners, and sparklers. byo fire extinguisher.

Even professionals’ fireworks can spark a fire. Remember July of 1996 when Redding fireworks ignited a two-acre fire near the Turtle Bay Park and Museum?

Not good.

That was the same year a couple of Redding teens set fire to their Wooded Acres subdivision after they bought illegal fireworks. Two Julys later illegal fireworks set fire to one acre on Bechelli Lane. 

If we do away with the fireworks this year, the north state might have a chance to celebrate our independence from fire.