It all started with an attempt in 1605 to blow an English king to smithereens but we continue to take our cue from that November day to light up the sky with fireworks.
November 5 is coming. You may not remember much about what it commemorates, but expect fireworks.
It’s hard to find a traditionalist who thinks it’s still important to celebrate the survival of King James I from the conspiracy to blow him up in London on November 5, 1605. It all seems a bit remote when you put it like that. But many of us still insist on letting off fireworks on that date. There are those for whom it is a bit of a lark, and there are those who think that an event that causes fires, injures the unwary and terrifies pets every year is well past its use-by.
But just to recap: Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators’ plans went up in smoke when he was caught beneath the House of Lords with 36 barrels of gunpowder for which he could not account. He was sentenced to a traitor’s death, but James was deprived of the slight consolation of seeing his would-be assassin drawn and quartered when Fawkes perished during the hanging stage of his punishment.
Let it go, implore the anti-fireworks campaigners. Dampen that squib. Move on. And some people and companies have, including Woolworths and Foodstuff’s supermarkets, Kmart and The Warehouse, which no longer sell them.
Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich, professor of anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington, says for years, “people have made jokes about how it does not make sense celebrating a guy who wanted to burn down Parliament … in a country on the other side of the world”.
The government doesn’t leave immigrants in the dark. A section explaining November 5 is included on Immigration NZ’s online site for prospective new arrivals. “In New Zealand, there is very little focus on the reason for the celebration,” it says. “It is simply a good occasion to get together with friends and family for some start of summer fun.”
Is Guy Fawkes doomed then? Bönisch-Brednich thinks so. “Anthropologists agree rituals that stop making sense will decline and disappear. Or they are adjusted to the times.”
But, says third-generation fireworks impresario James York of Bad Boy Fireworks – originally Universal Fireworks and in business since 1948 – the event and its inspiration have grown apart. “It’s become more of a New Zealand tradition. Most of our customers are families – they come in and buy their box of fireworks.
“They might have a barbecue with family and friends and it’s basically the event that leads into the summer season where they get in the backyard, light some fireworks and it’s just a great family night.”
Diwali, Chinese New Year and more recently Matariki are also seen as top opportunities for public displays of ignition.
“If people still love fireworks these will be shifted to another date and occasions,” says Bönisch-Brednich. “New rituals emerge that do make sense to people and help them to structure their lives and even celebrate and understand life.
“Matariki is clearly hitting a lot of the right buttons now. People embrace it; it is an emerging set of rituals that is right for Aotearoa. It is at the right time of the annual cycle, it invites fireworks as it is dark early, and fireworks are a good addition. They are kind of Western but also universal and they are matching the metaphor of watching stars in the sky.”
Not everyone supports making Matariki the default fireworks. The government’s Matariki Advisory Committee, which made recommendations on how the public holiday should be celebrated, said fireworks clashed with a core value, environmental awareness, and may also be at odds with the principal of remembrance of those who had died during the past year.
Any day of the year is a good day if people have stockpiled fireworks they bought in the legal sales period, which has been shortened over the years: since 2007 it’s been restricted to three days, between November 2 and 5 (the Clark government upped the sales age from 14 to 18 at the same time). There is no law prohibiting hoarding, which makes a small minority doubly happy.
The short sales window aligns with that of most countries, although in Belgium and Sweden fireworks can be bought year-round. In the UK there are legal sales not just at Guy Fawkes but also at New Year, Diwali and Chinese New Year.
Meanwhile, for York, pyrotechnics have not lost their sparkle. Blame Covid: “During Covid, worldwide, after being cooped up at home for a long time, everyone just went crazy for fireworks.”
He says his work year is considerably longer than a few days at the beginning of November. “Generally we come out of one season and within a couple of weeks we are placing our orders for the following year. We visit China most years and we try to ship our fireworks out of China by July. Shipping of fireworks is not as easy as shipping everything else so you have to time your production pretty well. Otherwise you can end up with your fireworks arriving after the season and then you’re in a world of dirt.”
His destination in China is Liuyang, a city of 1.4 million people almost entirely devoted to the production of fireworks. Buyers go “mainly for quality control, just making sure they’re producing everything correctly”. He has noticed that over the years, the factories have become bigger and safer.
Weddings, significant birthdays and important occasions also drive consumption for those with money to burn.
Safe as
Safety is top of mind for most people who are fireworks-averse. Fire and Emergency NZ community education and behaviour-change manager Tom Ronaldson is no stranger to responsible fireworks behaviour. Growing up, he says, “I and my family would partake in fireworks. And it was always done really safely. My dad was in charge of lighting them and making sure that we were all safe.”
That was then. Now, “for me personally the public displays are significantly better than anything you can do, so I think that’s where people are going to get to see the best of fireworks. And that’s why we encourage people to attend those.”
The good news, he reports, is “over the last five years we’ve seen a reduction in the number of fires caused by fireworks. In 2019, for example, there were 150 fires caused by fireworks. Over the past four years that has dropped to about 30 fires over the Guy Fawkes period. But even one fire is too many so we want to see that number get down to zero.”
To which end FENZ is advocating further restrictions on the sale of fireworks to individuals. “And we really encourage people to visit checkitsalright.nz before they light fireworks to make sure there are no bans in place.”
Animal crackers
The other interest group that faces pyrotechnical difficulties at this time is the animal kingdom. And it’s not just zoo animals, farm animals and pets that can get spooked.
“People often overlook the impact on our birds,” says Alison Vaughan, scientific officer with the SPCA. “Guy Fawkes is almost winter in the UK, but here it is when our native birds are nesting. There’s been a lot of research in the last couple of years showing the effect of fireworks on birds and we’re massively impacting them at one of the most critical times.”
It’s a long list of repercussions: “It’s a sort of startle response. They will take flight and fly at altitudes well above what is normal, and this can cause them to become disoriented, stressed and potentially injured. We also see nest abandonment as a potential consequence.”
There’s not a lot the SPCA can do to remove the risk. “While the SPCA pushes for a ban on private sale and use, we know fireworks are part of how New Zealanders choose to celebrate many events. We encourage people, if they’re going to have their own event, to let your neighbours know. That can allow people who own animals to take the steps they need to ahead of time.”
Animates Vetcare is also pushing for a ban through its Pawprint Petition.
Vaughan meanwhile has devised a programme of soothing music designed to keep pets calm during the fireworks that RNZ Concert will broadcast on November 5.
No official record is kept of fireworks-related animal injuries, but “horses are another set of overlooked impacts”, she says. “A lot of people think of cats and dogs, but a survey of horse owners done a few years back found 35% of respondents had reported having horses break through fences, and a quarter reported their horses had injuries associated with fireworks.”
So, add the SPCA to the list of groups that prefer public fireworks displays to private. Also on that list and making a fortune out of it: Australia, where fireworks have really gone off. Australians haven’t celebrated Guy Fawkes as such since the early days of colonisation, although “cracker night” is still observed here and there. With no private pyrotechnics permitted and minimal interest in the fate of Jacobean regicides, its fireworks displays have for many years been held on Queen’s/King’s Birthday weekend by community groups and service clubs.
This tradition has evolved into the giant public displays focused on the likes of Sydney Harbour, which are now a big earner of tourist dollars. Originally held mainly to celebrate New Year and Australia Day, they are now held whenever there is a hat to be dropped.
“The biggest difference between Australia and New Zealand in terms of firework displays is that Australia puts the money into them,” says York. “If you look at Sydney Harbour, they spend millions on doing that firework display because they actually use it as a drawcard to bring tourists to Sydney. The return they get on doing their fireworks display is insane.”
Something in the air
‘Well ventilated’ though Aotearoa is, we shouldn’t discount the lead in fireworks.
Risks to property, pets and pinky fingers are the well-known downside of Guy Fawkes celebrations. Less discussed is the potential risk from toxins they send into the air we breathe.
Bad Boy’s James York says it is not a problem. “There’s none of that. We have to abide by the Environmental Protection Authority guidelines.” York declined to share details of the composition of his products.
Atmospheric chemist Perry Davy still has concerns. He works at GNS Science and is co-author of “The contribution of commercial fireworks to both local and personal air quality in Auckland, New Zealand” and other research into air-borne nasties. “We have been monitoring, collecting fine particles out of the atmosphere for about 25 years and measuring the composition,” says Davy. “From our ongoing monitoring, individual elements show up, and with fireworks, we notice that there’s a small blip in lead concentrations across monitoring sites [around November 5].”
And not just lead. “Fireworks release vast quantities of particulates into the atmosphere. If you’ve been to a fireworks display, there’s lots of smoke and that’s all just fine particles. And fireworks being what they are, the pretty colours that they produce depend on the constituent chemicals.”
But the quantities are small, so why worry? “For something like lead, in terms of the concentrations that we pick up at our monitoring sites, they are not breaching our ambient air-quality standards guidelines.”
But, he says, taking a “holistic approach” means looking at an individual’s entire exposure profile. “There’s no real biological use for lead and we know that it has some adverse neurological effects, so ideally you’d want to minimise exposure.”
Sparklers present a particular hazard. “Being hand-held at arm’s length the exposure profile is quite high. Stepping back from the toxicity of the metals, we know that a dose of fine particles from the atmosphere is detrimental to your health. That’s been proven epidemiologically.”
So, fireworks bear some risk but not a lot unless you are particularly sensitive or get exposed to an enormous quantity. For the rest of the time, says Davy, our air quality is “not too bad compared with Europe and some of the mega-cities”.
“We’re a small scrap of land in a big ocean so we’re well ventilated. We don’t tend to have issues with other people’s air pollution drifting across.”
Not even from those giant Aussie fireworks spectaculars.
