Air pollution spiked in the hours after Washington’s world-record-busting July 4 fireworks show, according to a new report from air monitoring company Clarity Movement.
Researchers and experts raised concerns before the semiquincentennial display about air quality in its aftermath. The show launched over 100 times as many fireworks as last year and left so much smoke in the air that by the end of the display the colorful bursts of light were often obscured behind thick clouds.
Concentrations of fine particulate matter, also known as PM2.5, jumped as high as 6.7 times the baseline average from the days before the show, which saw 851,000 fireworks explode in the skies above Washington.
“Freedom 250 provided a unique opportunity to study how a large-scale fireworks display, alongside broader July 4 celebrations across the city, affects air quality,” Clarity CEO and co-founder David Lu said in a statement.
