This 4th of July, many of us near Albuquerque are living with the fresh memory of the Dog Head Fire — 17 thousand acres just went poof! — a few miles out of town, it’s now considered 95% contained, but as hot and fierce as it burned, it’s important to continue looking for fireless ways for people to celebrate. Since 2012 I (Adric) have collected ideas for sending out to friends, and Quelab friends.

I know my mother, who supported the responsible use of fireworks to entertain us kids, hated anything that went boom or whistled. (and if it flew in the air, it was pretty much forbidden by our county firework laws) This naturally made me love and lust for anything that whistled, boomed, or flew in the air. But her lessons on knowing where to safely set up fireworks, how to set up buckets and hoses and all to make sure we could contain anything that did start to burn, and other general safety ideas did stick with me. I’m not in favor of banning personal fireworks, but i do plead that everyone who uses them please be careful and responsible!

On with the Fireless Stuff!

Some of these can be combined as entertainment before and after the fireworks (no matter if it’s a big stadium display or your own small home one).

All ages ideas:

A bazooka that does not explode — and despite the fact it sucks, it throws a pingpong ball or paper ball pretty far!

http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Vacuum-cleaner-Bazooka/

Smoke ring cannon, with dry ice fog

http://www.instructables.com/id/Dry-Ice-Smoke-Ring-Cannon-No-fog-machine-necessa/

Salt paint fireworks, (might be fun to setup some blowgun targets with paintballs and see if salt will stick to the “paint”) …

http://busymommymedia.com/firework-salt-painting/

Fourth of July slime

http://www.pleasantestthing.com/4th-july-activity-make-slime

Dish brush painted fireworks

http://www.craftymorning.com/kids-fireworks-craft-using-dish-brush/

Wind twirls

http://happyhooligans.ca/patriotic-wind-twirlers-paper-towel-rolls/

Make pretty giant stars out of nothing but paperbags and glue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAYLq1k264I

Bubblewrap machine gun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76usvBPZbSk

On the food front we have:

Alton Brown’s Favorite 4th recipes

http://altonbrown.com/alton-browns-july-4th-recipes/

Stained Glass Jello

http://www.instructables.com/id/Stained-Glass-Jello/

Red White and Blue Layered Drinks for kids.

http://artsymomma.com/2013/07/red-white-blue-layered-kids-drink-4th-of-july.html

And Red White and Blue Drinks for adults.

http://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/g2465/boozy-4th-of-july-drinks/

Pizza Box Solar Smores!

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/solar-oven/

#Danger# Section:

Exploding water bottle bb/blowgun/pellet targets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rDRFFSUrPI

Liquid nitrogen can be pretty hard to get, and surely needs a little more safety, but here is a build for liquid nitrogen and water rocket launcher.

https://youtu.be/jrRmID81wrc

This one is for home made caps/exploding targets, it’s not entirely fireless, the compound does explode but there is no sustained flame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctX3juq9Okw

#needs work section:

Glowing fountain (blacklight), this one was a bit of a failure, but i suspect the addition of some yellow highlighter marker ink, and a brighter blacklight could probably make this work. But its good to know others are also on the hunt.

https://tutorialsformyparents.com/how-to-create-the-fireless-firework-a-humbling-scientific-exploration-and-thoughtful-relfection-on-the-michelson-morley-experiment/

Link to 2015’s Fireless Fourth, which also links back 2014, 2012, 2011!

https://quelab.net/19047/quelabs-annual-fireless-4th-collection-of-links/