At least three people are dead and 20 are injured following a New Year’s Eve fireworks explosion in a Honolulu residential neighborhood, officials said.
The explosion occurred at a house three miles west of Fort Shafter, the headquarters of the United States Army Pacific. Videos posted to social media by neighbors show a rapid series of bursts creating a blinding light next to the house as fireworks erupted around the city.
Emergency personnel found “dozens of victims” when they arrived at a house just after midnight Wednesday in response to a reported explosion, Dr. James Ireland, director of Honolulu’s Department of Emergency Services, said at a Wednesday morning news conference.
“I’ve been in EMS for over 30 years and this is probably one of the worst calls I’ve ever been on as far as just the immense tragedy and amount of patients and severity of the injuries,” Ireland said.
Officials have not yet released a cause of the deadly explosion.
Sunny Johnson, paramedic supervisor for Honolulu Emergency Medical Services, said at the early morning news conference — as fireworks continued to go off in the background — that 20 patients were transported to various hospitals, and two people were pronounced dead at the scene. They were unsure how many victims may have been injured and left before emergency services arrived. A statement from Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi later put the death toll at three.
“This incident is a painful reminder of the danger posed by illegal fireworks, which put lives at risk, drain our first responder resources, and disrupt our communities,” Blangiardi said. “Year after year, a minority of individuals recklessly endanger us all. This is absurd and unacceptable.”
Aerial fireworks require a pyrotechnic permit under Hawaiian state law. However, only a small minority of attempts at prosecuting those violating fireworks restrictions result in guilty verdicts or pleas, and they usually only result in minor fines, according to a Honolulu Civil Beat analysis.
New Year’s Eve fireworks have a long history in Hawaii. For decades, lawmakers have struggled to quell the widespread use of them across the state. A multi-agency task force was established in 2010 to curb illegal fireworks, which, in addition to injuring residents and pets and damaging property, had become a strain on public safety agencies.
Dozens are injured each year in fireworks-related injuries on New Year’s Eve, although it decreased from a high of 112 in 2009 to 42 in 2019, according to a Hawaiian legislative report that year.
Five people were injured in four other incidents involving fireworks in Oahu, Hawaii News Now reported.
