Happy 250th Independence Day! If a Spark Gets Away From You, FRSTeam North Florida is here to save your belongings.
Every Fourth of July, Duval, St. Johns, and Clay Counties light up with backyard celebrations. Every year, a few of those celebrations end with a scorched fence line, a melted gutter, or worse. It only takes one stray spark landing on a dry roof, a bush next to the house, or a pile of paper plates on the patio table to turn a holiday into a fire damage claim.
According to the NFPA, fireworks started an estimated 34,079 fires in 2024, including more than 3,200 structure fires. Structure fires make up only about 11% of all fireworks-related fires, but they account for roughly 77% of the fireworks-related civilian deaths, 83% of the injuries, and 88% of the direct property damage tied to fireworks. In other words, the fires that start in and around homes are the ones that do the real damage. If it happens to your house this year, here’s what you need to know, both to prevent it and to protect what’s inside if it happens anyway.
NFPS says, “Children younger than 15 years of age accounted for 32% of the estimated 2023 injuries. These injury estimates were obtained or derived from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s 2023 Fireworks Annual Report.” Keep a close eye on your children during your celebrations and take a few moments to talk them through fireworks safety before kicking off festivities.
Basic Precautions That Actually Prevent Fires
Keep a hose or a full bucket of water within reach the entire time fireworks are in use, not just nearby. Only light fireworks on a hard, flat surface well away from the house, dry grass, mulch beds, and parked cars, and skip them entirely on a windy night. Light one at a time, and never relight a dud — let it sit and soak it in water before disposal. Sparklers burn at temperatures hot enough to cause serious burns, so keep young children supervised closely and never let them handle fireworks unattended. When the show is over, douse every spent firework in water — including sparkler wire — before it goes anywhere near a trash can.
If Fire or Smoke Reaches Your Belongings
First and foremost, be sure to have those safety items nearby, including the water hose or 5-gallon water buckets. If a fire is unmanageable, call 911 immediately.
After the fire, is when FRSTeam North Florida goes to work.
If a firework does damage your home, the fire itself is often the smaller problem. Smoke moves through a house fast, and it settles into fabric, upholstery, wood finishes, and electronics in ways that aren’t always obvious right away. Soot is acidic, and the longer it sits on textiles or metal surfaces, the more corrosive and harder to remove it becomes — which is exactly why the belongings inside a home after a fire often look and smell far worse than they actually are once professional restoration begins.
This is where contents restoration becomes its own specialty, separate from structural fire repair. Clothing, furniture, electronics, and personal items each respond differently to smoke and heat exposure, and each requires a different restoration process to bring them back safely. At FRSTeam North Florida, we pack out belongings, document everything for your insurance claim, and restore what can be restored rather than defaulting to replacement. Many homeowners are surprised how much comes back clean.
If your insurer or contractor is handling the fire cleanup, you can still ask directly whether a contents restoration specialist is being brought in before anything gets written off. Restoration is usually faster than replacement, and it’s the only way to save items that can’t simply be repurchased — family photos, heirlooms, and everything else that matters more than its price tag.
Have a Safe Fourth — And Know Who to Call If You Need Us
FRSTeam North Florida is veteran-owned and serves homeowners across Duval and Clay County — Jacksonville, Orange Park, Fleming Island, Jacksonville Beach, and Ponte Vedra — along with Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia communities within about two hours of Jacksonville. Enjoy the holiday safely, and if a firework mishap leaves fire or smoke damage behind, don’t assume the worst about what’s salvageable.
Call FRSTeam North Florida at 904-629-6614 or visit frsteamrestore.com/contact to get a contents restoration specialist on the way.