Fireworks losing their sparkle

If you wanted to start a fire, these were near-perfect conditions. It had been unseasonably warm and dry all day in north Canterbury and winds were strong. All it needed was a spark.

Wildfire season normally starts in summer in Canterbury but Wednesday happened to be the day that fireworks went on sale – the first of only four days in the year they can legally be sold. That is said to have been the necessary spark.

By yesterday morning a fire that burned across more than 200 hectares at Pegasus and Woodend, and forced hundreds of people to evacuate, had been contained. But at its worst, the smell of smoke was noticed right across Christchurch to the south, seeping into homes in the dead of night.

Thanks to Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz), no houses, property or lives were lost.

By the time the fire was contained we learned it had allegedly been started by a teenager with fireworks that were bought that day. So far, so familiar. You could set your calendar by such stories.

It has been three years since fireworks started fires on Maungarei/Mt Wellington and Maungawhau/Mt Eden in Auckland, despite a strict fireworks ban on those and other volcanic cones.

It has been nearly two years since fireworks were suspected to have caused fires in Christchurch and parts of Bank Peninsula. Those fireworks were set off during hotter, drier conditions in December, despite being bought during the four-day retail window in November. On that occasion, Fenz took the drastic step of using powers to ban fireworks under the Fire and Emergency Act. It has done the same thing this year in parts of Otago and Northland.

Following the familiar stories is a familiar question. Should the public be prohibited from setting off private fireworks entirely, given the obvious risks?

The SPCA has been calling for a ban for years, given its attention to the very real distress fireworks cause in animals.

The official view of Fenz is that fireworks should be limited to public display only, under professional supervision. Polls have shown New Zealanders generally agree with that. But political will lags behind, even for a Government that is happy to ban plastic straws and polystyrene food packaging.

Politicians can point to law changes that made it harder to buy fireworks and have probably contributed to their declining use. A law reform in 2007 created the four-day retail window and said buyers had to be 18 or older.

But of course, fireworks bought in those four days can be used all year round. Laws that say fireworks can be used only on private property are obviously ignored, as is the guidance about only setting them off in calm conditions.

But again, who wants to be a grinch or a killjoy, even if it means saying goodbye to a hillside of native bush or a caravan park? A Government not typically averse to regulation appears instead to be waiting for fireworks to die a natural death.

Environment Minister David Parker has said that in 2021 there was a 9% decrease in fires caused by fireworks and a 24% reduction in fireworks-related calls to police, compared to 2020. But around a third of New Zealand’s population was at alert level 3 last November, which could have affected Guy Fawkes activity.

Yet there is no question fireworks are less popular than they were, along with the accompanying mythology. Children in 21st century New Zealand will have a much more limited understanding of who Guy Fawkes was and what he did than those born a generation or two earlier.

Sales have fallen, and major retailers no longer stock them. Fireworks are not the mainstream, family-friendly activity they once were. Social acceptance of them has declined. Maybe this is the way fireworks end in New Zealand. Not with a ban but a whimper.

Fireworks are less popular than they were, along with the accompanying mythology.