BROOKS, Ky. — Adam Wheeler, general manager of Phantom Fireworks in Brooks, Kentucky, has one piece of advice for people shopping for fireworks this Fourth of July. 

“Shop now. Don’t wait until the last few days or you aren’t going to find your favorite items.”

That’s because there is a fireworks shortage in the industry, so Wheeler said this year, it’s more important than ever to shop early.

 “In 20 years of doing this, I’ve never seen a shortage anything close to this. It’s going to be hard this year, especially for the people who wait the last few days,” Wheeler said. 

Spectrum News 1 visited the store Wheeler works at on Monday, June 28, and saw the shelves for the most part were full. However, some products did need to be restocked.

“I do have more coming in. I’m not just sitting on what I’ve got for now through the holiday. There will be more in stock, but, again, they’re going to be higher numbers of items that will be unavailable,” Wheeler said.

Steve Houser, president of the National Fireworks Association (NFA), which advocates for its over 1,200 members that are fireworks manufacturers, importers and sellers, said that the shortage is due to the pandemic.

According to Houser, with people coming out of quarantine around the Fourth of July last year, not as many people summer vacationing, and public Fourth of July fireworks shows being canceled, people created their own fireworks shows, driving consumer spending on fireworks. 

“So what that did on the retail side is it gave us a record year of retail sales, but it totally depleted inventories. So we ended the year very, very low with inventories,” Houser explained.

According to the NFA, over 90% of America’s fireworks are manufactured in China. Houser said some temporary halts in manufacturing by China have also contributed to less inventory of fireworks.

“Last year what they did, is in the month of December, they basically put a moratorium on the shipping of fireworks, specifically, and I think that was more a result of they had other goods they wanted to try and get on boats, whether it be semiconductors or other things,” Houser explained. “So no fireworks came out of China in the U.S. in the month of December.”

In addition, Houser said Chinese manufacturing of fireworks was halted due to Chinese factories that close for the Lunar New Year. 

“But then the government in Beijing was having national meetings. Well, when they have national meetings, they shut down all fireworks production because they don’t want to be up there having national meetings and having some sort of an accident in a fireworks factory,” Houser explained. 

Therefore, Houser said because of the Lunar New Year and national meetings, factories making fireworks were shut down from the end of January until the second week of March.

“And that’s a massive amount of production that can happen in that timeframe that didn’t. So when they came back in March and started making, pouring these goods out, it just couldn’t get here fast enough,” Houser said.

The pandemic has also slowed international shipping and global trade, which creates supply chain issues like shipping container shortages, leading to fewer fireworks on container ships.

“So our product has to go on the front of the ship, on the top layer, that way if there’s ever a fire or disaster at sea, where the boat could be in peril, predominately fire, they can drop the containers in the ocean to save the boat. So we only get a percentage of the container space on any vessel. So if you go from a 5,000 container vessel down to a 3,000 container vessel, your percentage is almost cut in half,” Houser explained.

Houser said the cost of shipping fireworks from China to the United States, has also drastically gone up. 

“And now it’s costing over $27,000 to bring a container of fireworks over, and that’s up from $9,800 that I was paying last year. And you know for some of the smaller importers, I think they are paying over 30 [thousand]. It’s really, really sad,” said Houser, who is also president of Red Rhino Fireworks, a wholesaler out of Joplin, Missouri 

Therefore, consumers will see an increase in fireworks prices. However, Houser said to the extent that he has spoken with his customer base, retailers are not passing all of the increased costs on to their customers.

“Most of them have gotten to the point that they are actually operating on a thinner margin. The prices are still up, but they are not making as much off the sale in terms of the margin," Houser said. “And I think they are wanting to do that. It’s a one-time quick, fast season. They don’t want to scare people off. They want people to continue to love fireworks.”

Wheeler said what is currently going on in the industry will affect some fireworks businesses more than others. 

“So we’re not seeing quite the same amount of shortages that a lot of other stores and tents and stands are going to face,” Wheeler explained. “So we are one of the bigger players so we’ve been able to kind of elbow our way through some of the supply chain issues that a lot of different fireworks retailers are dealing with this year.”

Even if that's the case, Wheeler's big piece of advice this year is to still buy fireworks sooner rather than later. And for those who do buy fireworks, safety is key: