We often hear about accidents involving fireworks at this time of year. Inevitably, we’ll read about someone losing a home due to the many exploding rockets landing in places where they shouldn’t. However, we tend to think that it can’t happen to us. We’re cautious, right? We follow proper safety procedures. We don’t shoot them towards homes or businesses. The problem is, though, that not everyone cares enough to even think about these things. Such was the case two years ago when my Community Manager Kat nearly lost her home.

Kat was inside working on some things for me late that night just before the holiday when she heard a lot of popping noises outside. She sighed and went to check… seeing the kids from down the block once again shooting off various fireworks in the parking lot of the strip mall across the street. Sadly, Indiana doesn’t have a law against this. The police refused to do anything about it. About a half an hour later, she heard sirens that sounded awfully close. She opened the door to be greeted by smoke pouring from the roof of the buildings across the street. The pet store, fireworks store and tax service office were on fire.

As you can see from that video footage, this was a devastating fire. It was quite dangerous since there are houses (including hers) so close to where those stores stood. It was horrible due to the fact that there were more than a hundred animals in that pet store waiting to be adopted into loving homes… including new baby kittens. None of the animals survived. Since there was a fireworks store attached to the pet store, the fire chief felt it was too dangerous to send men inside to attempt a rescue.

In this next short video clip, you can hear the sheer terror and panic in her voice as the fire finally made its way inside the fireworks store. You can hear her yell that the windows are about to blow. Just a few seconds before that, she saw what she described as a “huge fireball” come from the back of the store… right out through the window she was facing. She saw fiery debris landing on her home, and was about to have a panic attack.

Thankfully, no one was injured and all homes in the area were spared – including Kat’s. It was later determined by investigators that the fireworks the kids were shooting off in the parking lot did, indeed, cause this massive fire. One of the rockets landed on the roof of the pet store, smoldering there and quickly sparking.

It CAN happen to you, no matter how careful you or anyone around you is. I urge you to use extreme caution and care when playing with fireworks. The next unnecessary explosion could be your home.

Have a happy – and SAFE – Fourth of July.

4th of July Fireworks can be Deadly

For all Americans in our community, I hope you had a fun (and safe!) 4th of July. Why not leave a comment, and let the rest of us know how you celebrated today? Did you cook out? Did you and the family head to the fireworks show? Independence Day is always one of my favorite holidays. I love the fireworks and food, of course – but also I appreciate the meaning the day holds. I sincerely thank all soldiers past and present for fighting for my freedom. Hopefully, you took the time to remember to do the same.

Our community was pretty quiet today, likely due to so many people out celebrating! However, I did find several excellent things that I wanted to pass along to all of you.

• How do you enlarge fonts on a web page?
• Michael Arrington says that hardware will be his next venture.
• Have you ever tried to simplify your computer life?
• What do you think of the possibility of buying Twitter followers?
• Achieve natural language procession using Python.
• Are you a music Geek?
• Who will win this summer’s Battle of the Smartphones?
• How soon do you predict we will make a serious move towards using solar power?
• What myths can you dispel about computer security?
• Steve McNair wasn’t just a quarterback – he was also a humanitarian.
• What are your thoughts on OpenOffice?
• Are there tricks to increasing your connection speed?

Independence Day