Homemade bomb
injures teenA shotgun shell bursts as
incidents related to the Fourth
of July increase over last year
A shotgun shell that teenagers were trying to make into a homemade bomb exploded and injured a 15-year-old boy in Waialua on Friday, said a resident of the house where the accident happened.
The boy may have been mixing fireworks with gunpowder from shotgun shells, police said.
Meanwhile, the number of fires on July Fourth increased this year over last year, said Fire Department spokesman Capt. Kenison Tejada. About half of the brush and rubbish fires on the Fourth of July are caused by fireworks, Tejada said.
A renter at the Waialua home on Kuhi Street where the blast occurred said he was cooking in the kitchen when he heard an explosion in the living room.
Cory, who would not give his last name, said he called 911, and friends in the house used a towel to apply pressure to a wound on the boy's back.
The boy was taken by helicopter to the Queen's Medical Center in serious but stable condition. An update on his condition was not available yesterday.
Police said the boy is a runaway and that the attempt to make a homemade bomb would be investigated by detectives.
Next-door neighbor Judith Favro said she heard a loud sound shortly after 8 p.m. and assumed it was fireworks until she saw the ambulance pull up.
The Honolulu Fire Department reported 42 brush fires and 22 rubbish fires Friday. That was up from 28 brush fires and 15 rubbish fires on Oahu last year, of which 21 were fireworks-related. As of 7 p.m. yesterday, another 17 brush fires and eight rubbish fires had been reported, the Fire Department said.
Kauai reported that three of four fires on July Fourth were fireworks-related.
Maui reported two of 10 fires related to fireworks Friday, and Molokai was still investigating the cause of one brush fire.
Only one of the fires reported Friday involved major property damage. Big Island investigators were trying to determine whether fireworks were involved in a blaze at an abandoned house in Puna. The fire began at 1:15 a.m. and burned about half of the structure. Damage was estimated at $120,000. The Fire Department said electricity to the house had been cut off.
The Big Island Fire Department and fire officials on Lanai did not have figures on the total number of Fourth of July fires on those islands.