Despite a complete ban on fireworks in Alameda County, Oakland’s skies are filled with fiery mortars on a nightly basis for weeks on end during the summer, especially on the Fourth of July holiday.
Unlike professional shows, these colorfully sonic bursts happen at all hours of the day and can range from whistling bottle rockets to cakes, which are large prepackaged boxes of mortars and giant sprinklers that belch sulfur fire high into the air. Mortars, which work like canons, are especially popular because they can lob a ball of explosives a hundred feet or more into the sky before it detonates into a rainbow shower of sparks.
The Fourth of July itself is a full-day pyrotechnical extravaganza: neighbors take to the streets to one-up one another with streetcorner shows, blasting off hundreds and even thousands of dollars worth of munitions…