For folks who live where fireworks are illegal, it might be hard to convey the absolute insanity that went down in my neighborhood last night. (If, after hearing me describe it, you feel it was worse in your neighborhood, congrats.)

From about 4 PM on July 4th until 1 AM on July 5th, there was not one solitary second when there was no detonation taking place. Nine straight hours of ripping explosion sounds.

Because the humidity was so high and there was no wind, the National Weather Service issued a respiratory hazard warning for my area until 9 AM this morning.

I went out for my second walk yesterday around 10 PM because I wanted to stick to my exercise plan. The area of my walk covered at least 10 square miles. I’m sure the smoke covered much more than that.

Keep in mind this is not a densely populated area. This volume of smoke was produced by a relatively low number of citizens with an enormous volume of explosives.

Here’s what it looked like.

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