https://www.cpsc.gov/Safety-Education/Safety-Education-Centers/Fireworks
For 2023, CPSC received reports of eight deaths and an estimated 9,700 injuries involving fireworks. Out of the eight deaths, five were associated with firework misuse, two with a device malfunction, and one involves unknown circumstances.
I’m actually more amazed at how sparklers were represented there. Compared to m80s and turbo tubes, they’re so benign
People think they are safer because they do not explode, they just sparkle!
And they give them to kids and drunk people who run around wildly with them.
They do not realize that sparklers are basically sticks of shitty thermite, burning at 2000 F.
If you had a candle or even a piece of kindling set on fire, and were waving it around willy nilly and bumped into someone, it’d hurt for a bit, but you could probably treat it with cold water, a minor burn.
Two fucking thousand degrees?
Different story.
In addition to the temperature difference, if an ember is shoved into something, the portion in contact is cut off from air and the burning rate slows/stops at the point of contact. Pyrotechnics like in sparklers have an oxidizer mixed in and will continue to burn even/especially with tight contact. Sparklers actually burn faster/hotter when compressed. Taping a whole bunch of sparklers tightly together becomes explosive.
Plus a lot of sparklers have a metal wire core that is efficient at transferring heat to skin. Whereas wood and charcoal are relatively insulating.