Mexican fireworks pack too much pow

By Chris Hawley, USA TODAY

TULTEPEC, Mexico — The rocket streaked out of Israel Sánchez's hand, arced into the sky, then exploded with a flash and an earsplitting boom.

"It's all in the craftsmanship," Sánchez said, looking pleased with his handiwork. "Those Chinese fireworks are all mass-produced with cardboard and plastic and stuff. We Mexicans make them better."

He's not the only one who thinks so. Large amounts of powerful Mexican fireworks are being seized at the U.S.-Mexico border from American travelers trying to add some kick to their Fourth of July celebrations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection says.

Mexican fireworks are often illegal in the USA because they have substandard packaging or inconsistent charges that can detonate too quickly, said Daniel Baldwin, the agency's assistant commissioner for trade. "They're much more powerful, much more lethal than we would allow in the United States," Baldwin said. "The American consumer has to be much more fully engaged … about protecting their own families, and not bring these goods across the border."

Last year, seizures of illegal Mexican fireworks reached an all-time high, even surpassing illegal fireworks shipments from China for the first time, Baldwin says. Most legal fireworks imported to the USA come from China.

In the Mexico City sucurb of Tultepec, proclaimed by a sign at the town's entrance as the "Pyrotechnics Capital" of Mexico, fireworks are a way of life. More than 6,000 city residents make their living from fireworks, many of them in small factories that produce everything from firecrackers to 12-inch shells for fireworks shows.

Common Mexican fireworks include powerful firecrackers known as rocas (rocks), vampiros (vampires), or patas de mula (mule hoofs). There are also castillos, massive wooden frames covered with brilliant flares.

On a recent afternoon, families lined up at the counter at Jolincer Chemical Supply, buying small bags of sulfur, aluminum powder and other ingredients as if they were ordering up pastrami at a delicatessen.

In front of the city market, one merchant used empty canisters of potassium chlorate — an ingredient in explosives — to mark a no-parking zone.

A nearby mural shows townspeople, some of them lacking hands, as they light powder kegs and cavort among burning castillos. The blunt portrayal of the industry's risks is backed up by recent tragedies — in 2006, a workshop exploded here, killing six people.

Sánchez's father, Raymundo, bent over a tub as he mixed diesel fuel, powdered charcoal and other ingredients by hand to make the rocket fuel for cohetones, a staple of Mexico's patron-saint festivals.

Like most firework shops in Tultepec, the Sánchez family makes everything from scratch. The cartridges are made out of packing tape and scrap paper purchased in bulk from a bank. Finished fireworks are packaged in old cornmeal and dog food sacks.

At the Aduna Pyrotechnics factory, owner Ruben Aduna said local fireworks makers were to blame for not making a product that could be legally exported.

"The United States could be a great market for us, but we need some standards," he said. "We can make any kind of firework you want here. But we can't be shipping them in cornmeal bags, you know?"

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009 ... orks_N.htm