MID-HUDSON – Fireworks, both legal and illegal, lit up the nighttime skies above the Hudson Valley on Tuesday in celebration of Independence Day.
Police agencies spent much of the time racing from one location to another for reports of illegal fireworks while many communities celebrated the Fourth of July with legal pyrotechnics.
Fireworks filled the sky in Poughkeepsie
A large crowd gathered on Rondout waterfront in Kingston
There were some accidental injuries from handling fireworks.
State Police said five people from the Mount Vernon area were southbound
on the Thruway in the Town of Tuxedo in an SUV that was carrying fireworks
in the rear. The occupants smelled smoke coming from the back of the vehicle
just before fireworks started to ignite. The vehicle quickly became engulfed
in flames causing three occupants to sustain relatively minor burns, and
two others to sustain more severe burns, troopers said. The two more severely
burned people were airlifted to Westchester Medical Center for treatment.
The fire and ignited fireworks were extinguished by the Woodbury Fire Department.
The investigation is continuing.
