You know I always had fireworks as a kid in California, the safe and sane branded product and as a rule believe they are fine. But around me in Anaheim,CA I have neighbors that fire very large bottle rockets, Firecrackers and even mortars, I have concerns and I don’t live in a dry rural location! My biggest gripe though are the morons that just don’t know when to quit (3AM july 5th is not the Fourth) and the third worlders that think firing a gun in the air is a clever thing to do. Also being a dog owner I have great animosity to the drunks that continue lighting firecrackers.
I live in Indy, most fireworks are legal here and have been for a very long time. However people get that mixed up with the “when” fireworks are legal. While you can buy fireworks anytime of the year, you can only set them off during certain times of the year up to a certain time of the day. So even on the legalness of fireworks there are limitations. It is sometimes wet and sometimes dry, this really wet as the ground is saturated. Even with that people still manage to light the dry spots on fire with their carelessness. A firecracker may not kill you but take it from the Three Digit Fireworks Company (as one of the local hots said over the extended weekend) “Be careful when you light your fireworks off this weekend.”
I didn't know you lived in my neighborhood, Mastador. You're lucky if they just fire them tonight. They start firing them off around here as soon as the firework stands open and will continue until they run out presumably in a few days. This process gets repeated at New Years.
It would be one thing to shoot them off if you have large piece of property, but this is a subdivision where the houses are ten feet apart. Last New Years some idiot knocked over their mortar & it went off in our front yard. It would've hit our house if we didn't have the tree out front. Like you said these aren't small ones, they're large mortars. I can't wait to move.