Danny Morales, 42, heard it crack through his ears and then he felt a
sharp blow to his face. A piece of fireworks had hurtled through a
crowd of Fourth of July revelers in Simi Valley and hit him between
the eyes.
Blood poured down Morales' face. He looked for his family and friends.
Like everyone else, they were sprinting for cover, desperate to get
away from the staging area where fireworks were exploding into the
crowd instead of into the sky.
The Morales family had staked out front-row seats for the fireworks
show two days earlier. On Thursday night, their great views turned
into a liability. Morales' sister-in-law saw a fireball flying
straight toward her. The flames singed her hair. Several of Morales'
cousins suffered minor burns. His brother, Victor Morales, 40, thought
he was fine until he got home and noticed a welt on his side where
debris had hit him.
In all, more than three dozen people were treated for injuries
suffered at the fireworks show. They included a toddler and a
71-year-old.
Authorities on Friday were trying to determine what caused the
accident. The chaos was captured in numerous cellphone videos. "Run,
run, run, run!" a man can be heard yelling on one of them as
explosions filled Rancho Santa Susana Community Park.
Simi Valley Police Cmdr. Blair Summey said that the incident began
when at least one explosive detonated early inside its canister. That
explosion caused a chain reaction that tipped over other canisters,
firing them toward the crowd.
Summey said the fireworks exploded about five minutes into what was
supposed to be a 25-minute show.
"These things were coming through low," Summey said. "They were
skipping along the ground. Some of these projectiles, they were
exploding as they were coming out of the canisters."
Authorities said that there were no indications of foul play and that
officials have not opened a criminal investigation. The Simi Valley
bomb squad deemed the area safe and workers from the pyrotechnic
company — New York-based Bay Fireworks — were scheduled to remove the
remaining explosives.
An estimated 10,000 people were watching the event, some heeding
appeals from firefighters to attend professional pyrotechnic displays
rather than light fireworks of their own.
Not far from the Morales' party of about 30, another onlooker,
16-year-old Josh Antonucci, was in a large group of spectators about
500 feet from the fireworks stand, close enough to see part of the
staging area tip over and see fireworks begin shooting into the crowd.
Antonucci turned to run and a projectile struck him in the back. "It
felt like a punch," he said. "I knew I just had to get away."
Antonucci became part of the crowd running to the park's edges and
away from trouble. Dustin Fields, 22, who was recovering from a recent
knee surgery, was trampled because he couldn't move quickly enough.
Paramedics took him to a hospital, where he remained Friday morning,
his father said.
On Friday, with the park still littered by barbecues, folding chairs
and other personal items abandoned by fleeing revelers, authorities
held a news conference to discuss the incident.
The Simi Valley Police Department, state fire marshal and Ventura
County Fire Department are all investigating.
One major issue is whether spectators were a safe enough distance from
the fireworks.
State regulations establish minimum standards for fireworks displays,
but county authorities can impose additional conditions. The
regulation states that the crowd must be 70 feet away for every one
inch of a mortar shell's diameter. The largest mortar shells in Simi
Valley were five inches, making the safe distance 350 feet, according
to Mike LaPlant, deputy chief of the Ventura County Fire Department.
Authorities estimated that the closest spectators were 800 feet from
the fireworks but stressed that they were still investigating. LaPlant
said that buffer "saved many more injuries."
Bay Fireworks did not respond to additional requests for comment but
issued a written apology. It said it was cooperating with
investigators and would conduct its own "thorough and complete"
investigation into the incident.
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