With July 4th coming up, parents have been firing off lots of questions about whether or not they should allow their older children to light fireworks, even the tinier ones.

Let me see if I can shoot off some information on this topic.

Every year, more than 11,000 visits to emergency departments are due to firework injuries with children under 15 years accounting for almost a third. The injuries mostly involve burns to the hands and fingers, but also to the head, face, ears, and eyes.

It turns out that Vermont and counties in upstate New York only allow individuals to light sparklers less than 14″ long or similar small novelty items. Yet, nearly half of the firework injuries to children under five years of age are related to their holding sparklers.

Believe it or not, sparklers can reach 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to melt gold and certainly hot enough to light clothes on fire and get badly burned.

For larger public displays, permits must be obtained from local authorities like the police and fire department. That being said, it is still possible for adults, and in turn children, to get hold of fireworks and shoot them off despite these laws – and that’s when some serious injuries start to occur.

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Recommendations to Prevent Injuries

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Don’t try to shoot off larger fireworks yourself. Instead, go enjoy them in a public display where they are ignited by experts who know what they are doing.

If an older child wants to light sparklers, make sure an adult is present to supervise and don’t allow smaller children under 12 years of age to light or hold a sparkler.

Follow the directions on the sparkler you are buying, and if you do give an older child a sparkler, make sure they are lighting them outside, using proper eye protection, doing so one at a time, and away from the face, clothing, and hair.

Please avoid carrying sparklers around in your pocket or in your child’s pockets since the friction of doing so could set them off.

If an eye injury occurs, do not try to wash out the eye, but seek the nearest emergency facility as soon as possible.

Finally, don’t forget your pet — who has sensitive ears and can be very frightened or stressed on July the 4th — so keep your pets indoors during public fireworks displays.

Hopefully, tips like these will blast away any ideas you might have had of lighting your own fireworks and instead allow you to enjoy the public display in your area.

Lewis First, MD, is Chief of Pediatrics at The University of Vermont Children’s Hospital and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine. You can also catch “First with Kids” weekly on WOKO 98.9FM and NBC5.