Fireworks Show Goes Off Course In Montauk - 'An explosion that was not part of the show'

The Fourth of July fireworks display in Montauk was shut down about 15 minutes after it started on Monday thanks to what may have been a defective shell.

"It was closed down because there was an explosion that was not part of the show," said James Dunlop, East Hampton Town's senior fire marshal. Mr. Dunlop, who was in charge of safety, stopped the display a little more than halfway through to prevent further explosions caused by the ensuing sparks.

Mr. Dunlop would not comment on whether the technician in charge of the Bay Fireworks display showed signs of being intoxicated. However, Town Police Chief Todd Sarris confirmed yesterday that he had been given a sobriety test.

"He passed it," Chief Sarris said. "There was an indication that showed he may have been drinking, but there was a question of when and whether he may have had a drink - before or after the fire marshal closed down the site."

Town police said between 10,000 and 15,000 spectators showed up to watch the fireworks, which were launched from a roped-off section of the ocean beach near the east end of Old Montauk Highway. The event typically draws a large crowd and this year may have attracted extra people from East Hampton, whose July Fourth fireworks were canceled to protect piping plovers.

Dave DiSunno, the town's chief fire marshal, said a shell went off halfway through a cylinder, which fell over and continued to explode on the sand. The impact knocked over several other cylinders, starting a chain reaction of explosions and spreading sparks that ignited nearby beach grass.

According to Mr. Dunlop, as the beach crew within the roped-off area was trying to stomp out the smaller fires, sparks blew toward the explosives for the pyrotechnic finale, set up a few feet away. Beach crew members, among them Mr. Dunlop and Bay Fireworks employees, were afraid the fireworks for the finale would all ignite at once, causing a huge explosion.

Mr. Dunlop decided to call for help from the Montauk Fire Department, which sent two brush trucks and about 20 firefighters just in case. "It was a pretty hairy situation for a while," he said.

"It's a miracle the technician wasn't hurt. There were sparks flying all over him," said Larraine Creegan, the executive director of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored the $18,000 event. The show was supposed to last 25 minutes, she said; instead, it started at 9:28 and was called off at 9:45.

This was not the first time the chamber was disappointed with Bay Fireworks, which is based in Huntington Station. The 2001 July Fourth display, which was set to go off in Lake Montauk, started two hours late and lasted only about five minutes before it was deemed unsafe.

At the time, the chamber blamed the Bay Fireworks technicians for arriving late. Bay Fireworks claimed the barge the chamber provided from which the technicians were to launch the explosives was too small, and that the display had to be redesigned.

Spectators near Umbrella Beach, from which the fireworks were launched on Monday, could see heavy smoke and an amber glow radiating from all the inadvertent fires there. Complaints about the show could be heard that night, but Ms. Creegan said no one had complained to the chamber.

She said one group on the ocean beach downtown had an impressive cache of fireworks of their own. "There were a lot of other fireworks on the beach that saved us," Ms. Creegan said.

The chamber's board of directors called "an emergency meeting" yesterday to discuss what to do about Monday's foul-up. On Tuesday Mr. Dunlop said his office had not cited Bay Fireworks and was waiting to see the results of the company's own investigation.

After the launching site was shut down on Monday, a team from Bay Fireworks was dispatched to dismantle the remaining launch tubes and remove them. The last of the material was taken from the beach at 4:30 a.m.

Mr. Dunlop, who was at the beach several times during the set-up and from 5 p.m. on, finished his work day at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

Bay Fireworks did not return phone calls by press time.