It was a disappointing Fourth of July for many Fort Worth residents who turned out to see the annual fireworks show, only for it to be canceled just seven minutes in due to sudden grassfires at the staging grounds.
The city’s fire chief and a pyrotechnic company executive spoke with Fox 4 on Tuesday to explain how “poor conditions,” ranging from weather to insufficient water on-site, led to grassfires and the abrupt cancellation of the event.
Prior to the show, Fort Worth boasted it would be the largest fireworks display in North Texas. Instead, announcers had to call for spectators to evacuate Panther Island Pavilion, where they had gathered to watch the production.
Magic in the Sky, a pyrotechnics company based in Boerne, 30 miles northwest of San Antonio, supplied the fireworks. A representative for the company told Fox 4 that poor weather conditions were partly to blame.
Flames from the fireworks display sparked grassfires on the Trinity River levees near Panther Island. While especially noteworthy, this was only one string of grassfires out of at least 250 reported to the Fort Worth Fire Department that day, according to CBS DFW.
Fort Worth Fire Chief Jim Davis had been concerned about the possibility of a fire in the weeks leading up to the Independence Day celebrations, and safety precautions had been taken.
Tarrant County Water District employees mowed the grass to four inches and watered down the staging area before the show started. A pump truck remained on standby at the site.
According to Davis, Magic in the Sky had also taken precautions to prevent fires from spreading during the event, obeying all national fire protection standards.
Despite the preventative measures, the grass ignited. At first, the situation was under control, but within minutes, the pump truck ran out of water to combat the flames and the fire overwhelmed site personnel.
The show’s remaining fireworks had both fire and water damage, prompting Chief Davis and Magic in the Sky president Jacob Dell’s joint decision to cancel the rest of the show out of fear that a misfire could harm someone.
Davis told reporters, “The last thing you want from a public safety standpoint is to reauthorize the shoot and have something happen in which … fireworks end up in the crowd across the river.”
Dell stated that something like this happens only once every 8-10 years.
The remaining fireworks from the display were eliminated on Tuesday by members of the Fort Worth Fire Department in what was described as “a controlled environment.”