Daytime fireworks? 20 years ago, Wellfleet's big show exploded too soon

The ginormous Fourth of July holiday looms on the horizon like a neon party boat. Burgers, lobsters and beer are being stockpiled in climate-controlled silos in each Cape Cod town. Parade floats are being constructed around the clock, ingenious concoctions made of stuff like horseshoe crab shells, sparkles and wonky beach umbrellas.

Yup, it's a big deal. But the biggest thing out of all these colossal Fourth frolics is fireworks. Plenty of Cape towns will light up the sky on and around the Fourth, and I'll bet there are folks who try to make all the shows they can. Right now, hundreds of people are probably practicing their "oohs" and "aahs" for the pyrotechnics to come.

As a cautious person who tends to avoid loud booms, the whole fireworks thing makes me a little nervous. I know this is a lamentable shortcoming in my character, so I always wear my "Skunk at the Party" T-shirt, alerting folks that a wet blanket is on the premises.

I started to wonder if fireworks shows on the Cape always go off as planned. And while my memory has more holes than a colander, something was nibbling at the back of my brain. With a great "Gadzooks!" I realized we are coming up on the 20th anniversary of the Great Wellfleet Daytime Fireworks Fiasco.

A July 11, 2004 sub-headline in the Cape Cod Times read "Crew unscathed as 5,000 pounds of fireworks explode in Wellfleet." And the story was explosive, too:

"Workers setting up a fireworks display yesterday near Wellfleet Harbor barely escaped with their lives when 5,000 pounds of pyrotechnics began exploding, set off by an electric-ignited shell that fired prematurely. A series of spectacular blasts on Indian Neck lasting nearly an hour were witnessed by hundreds of summer revelers lining the shores around the harbor.

"No one was injured and no houses, boats or other property were reported damaged. The accident created thick columns of billowing black and gray smoke, which was visible from miles away on a beautiful, mostly clear day. The odor of gunpowder wafted across the harbor."

At the time, my family and I were living in a house that was about a third of a mile from Wellfleet Harbor. But we had a two-month-old baby, our own little firework, so most of the explosions involved diapers. I stayed on baby duty, and my wife went out to investigate.

She saw a lot of gawkers at the pier. According to the Cape Cod Times, "The scene around the harbor took on a carnival atmosphere at times, with cheers heard after the louder blasts and spectators crowding onto beaches and the town pier for a better view."

I guess you don't get to see a daytime fireworks show very often, so you might as well soak it all in. Especially when no one gets hurt, which was the best aspect of this big bang oddity.

And it sounds like the fireworks workers had to skedaddle to avoid injury. According to the Cape Cod Times, the "workers were loading mortar shells when one of them ignited." Once that happens, "you have four seconds to get out of Dodge," a fireworks company spokesperson told the Times.

A truck used to transport the fireworks and a trailer were destroyed, and several acres in the Indian Neck area were scorched by brush fires according to the Times. Firefighters had to wait for the explosions and random rockets to quiet down for about an hour and a half before they could approach the burning trailer.

The finale to this story is a happy one: the fireworks company put on a free show in Wellfleet later that summer. The two babies (me and my infant daughter) skipped that one, too.

Eric Williams, when not solving Curious Cape Cod mysteries, writes about a variety of ways to enjoy the Cape, the weather, wildlife and other subjects. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @capecast.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod Fourth of July fireworks: When Wellfleet's show exploded