With fireworks banned, what's a buyer to do?

INDIANAPOLIS(WISH) - For many, the hot and dry weather made this fireworks season a complete dud. Now thousands of Hoosiers are sitting on plenty of unused fireworks.

“Between everything, we spent about $2,500 on the fireworks alone,” said Noblesville resident Tom Wagenhouser. 

When he found out he would have to cancel his annual Fourth of July fireworks show, he was a little more than disappointed.

Indiana law allows fireworks to be used June 29 through July 9 and over the New Year holiday. They can be used other times of the year, but during those holiday periods, municipalities can't ban them without an emergency declaration. Many municipalities in Indiana enacted emergency bans to outlaw personal use of fireworks over the Independence Day holiday period because of drought-related fire concerns.

Wagenhouser said he hopes because of those bans that a special concession will be made to allow fireworks over Labor Day. Some towns have ordinances banning fireworks other times of the year. Indianapolis is one of those cities.

"If we can’t fire them off then, we will have to get rid of them and dispose of them properly. I don’t know all that is involved in disposing of them properly,” he said.

Fire officials said the safest way to dispose of fireworks is farily simple: Take the firework, remove the fuse soak that firework for 24 hours.  Only then can you safely take the firework - wrapped in a plastic bag - and throw it in your trash. 

Fireworks that aren't soaked in water, said Todd Estes of the Noblesville Fire Department, can easily catch fire in the trash. 

“We go from just a small firework, now we have a dump truck that’s on fire that’s full of trash. Or it can even be at the trash site itself,” said Estes. 

If you do plan to store your fireworks, fire officials said to store them in a cool dry place and not in direct sunlight.

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Editor's note: The original version of this story had inaccurate information about Indiana's laws on fireworks.