Honolulu fireworks blast kills 3, injures more than 20 New Year's party

Emergency crews arrived to a chaotic and gruesome scene in a Honolulu neighborhood after a large New Year's firework tipped over after being lit and ignited a fiery, shrapnel-studded blast that killed three people and injured more than 20 others, several of them critically.

Two women died at the scene and a third woman died at a hospital, authorities said Wednesday as they implored people to abandon their New Year's tradition of setting off fireworks across the city. Officials promised tougher penalties for illegal fireworks.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green graphically described the deaths in a news conference Wednesday to emphasize the potential danger of fireworks. “We’re talking about the worst possible, war-zone injuries that took their lives.”

Some of the more than 20 people taken to hospitals with severe burns and shrapnel wounds included children, said officials who had not yet publicly identified any victims including those killed.

Police were investigating whether charges for the person who lit the firework near midnight were warranted, Honolulu Police Chief Arthur Logan said.

The blast happened at a three-story home with a bottom-level carport. Piles of debris including bundles of blackened firework mortars could be seen in front of the house in Wednesday's daylight.

The explosion broke windows across the street. It happened when a lit bundle of aerial, mortar-style fireworks called a “cake” tipped over or fell off a table and fired sideways into crates containing additional fireworks, which then exploded.

The cake's rounds could be separated but had been lit as a bundle of 50, part of what officials said was tens of thousands of dollars' worth of fireworks at the home.

Ambulance crews arrived but had to triage — separate and treat victims with the worst injuries first — several houses away because of parked cars and crowds on the streets, Honolulu Emergency Services Department Director Dr. Jim Ireland said.

Some people nearby continued setting off fireworks even as blast victims were being taken to hospitals, officials said.

The neighborhood is near Honolulu's international airport and a joint U.S. Air Force and Navy base and a little more than 2 miles (3.22 kilometers) east of the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, which honors sailors who died in the attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the U.S. into World War II.

“I’ve been in EMS over 30 years and this is probably one of the worst calls I’ve ever been on as far as the immense tragedy and amount of patients and severity of the injuries,” Ireland said in an earlier news conference.

A fourth person was killed in a different fireworks explosion elsewhere on Oahu, officials said. At least four other serious injuries occurred in unrelated fireworks accidents overnight.

Social media posts overnight showed fireworks being set off across wide areas of Honolulu even though sparklers, fountains and aerial fireworks are illegal and a permit is required to set off firecrackers, according to the Honolulu Fire Department.

“We’re angry, frustrated and deeply saddened at this unnecessary loss of life and suffering. It’s a tragic way to start the new year,” Mayor Rick Blangiardi said. “No one should have to endure such pain due to a reckless and illegal activity.”

Green said he was looking into whether new penalties including a felony charge for possessing large fireworks are needed to curtail fireworks in Hawaii.

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Gruver reported from Cheyenne, Wyoming. John Hanna contributed to this report from Topeka, Kansas.