#47 Safe & Sane

“Safe & Sane” is a designation for fireworks that are safe for the consumer, such as the sparkler in this AmperArt piece, & usually means they are legal to purchase & use.

I was sur­prised to learn that the term “safe & sane” is not a brand, as one would think (at least I did for the last 50 years), but rather a “stamp of approval” to denote the pyro safe­ty fac­tor. I was very pleased at this dis­cov­ery, for it allows this Amper­Art edi­tion to be part of my slo­gan series in addi­tion to cel­e­brat­ing the 4th of July, or Inde­pen­dence Day, in the Unit­ed States.

Here’s what Wikipedia says:

The term “Safe & Sane” fire­works became pop­u­lar in the late 1950s & 1960s as a way to describe those fire­works that don’t fly, trav­el or explode. For exam­ple, foun­tains, sparklers, snakes & smoke effects, ground spin­ners, snap pops & oth­er nov­el­ty fire­works fit this descrip­tion. How­ev­er, fire­crack­ers, rock­ets, roman can­dles, shells & oth­er aer­i­al effects are not usu­al­ly con­sid­ered safe & sane fire­works. The deter­mi­na­tion of what fire­works will bear the offi­cial “Safe & Sane” seal is deter­mined by the state & city as every juris­dic­tion has its own spe­cif­ic def­i­n­i­tion of what are con­sid­ered Safe & Sane fire­works under their laws & ordinances.

Of course, as kids we always man­aged to sneak in some fire­crack­ers, rock­ets, roman can­dles,  Pic­co­lo Petes & oth­er excit­ing, loud & dan­ger­ous pyros every 4th of July. Near­ly got my toes blown off once, though.

Here’s some good advice:

Always keep a buck­et of water near­by to com­plete­ly cool down & extin­guish your sparklers, spin­ners, foun­tains & oth­er Safe & Sane fire­works. You are still work­ing with pyrotech­nic com­pounds which include gun­pow­der & require an open flame or oth­er fuse-​lighting method. After fire­works are dis­patched, the rem­nants can remain very hot for quite some time & burn curi­ous children’s fingers.