On Saturday, as the skies above Washington host what President Trump has called “the largest fireworks show in history,” dogs will be sedated, the elephants at the National Zoo may retreat to an indoor escape and many residents will abandon the city entirely.
Pyrotechnics have brought bombs-bursting-in-air spectacle, joy and national pride to Americans since 1777, though they also come with something else: a lot of smoke and a lot of booms.
On this Fourth of July, as America celebrates its 250th anniversary, organizers are trying to set a world record by igniting more than 850,000 fireworks from 10 sites including the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and from barges along the Potomac River.
To add to the patriotic rumpus, squadrons of fighter jets and bombers will shriek through the skies above the National Mall in an all-day, all-American cacophony.
Not to be a party pooper, but the weekend extravaganza comes with significant environmental downsides for people, pets and wildlife.
For starters, the 40-minute pyrotechnic spectacular is likely to form thick plumes of pollution above the city. And 100-degree temperatures are expected to exacerbate poor air quality.
An analysis of the planned fireworks prepared by the National Park Service and obtained by The New York Times found that air quality would be “hazardous” near the National Mall during and after the show and “very unhealthy” in downtown Washington, Capitol Hill and across the Potomac River in Arlington, Va.
Air pollution would affect areas as far as 15 miles downwind of the event, according to the analysis, which was not publicly released. The effects would linger for as long as six hours after the last fireworks, the document said. And metals and particulate matter would settle on the Mall and in the river.
Representatives for the National Park Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the analysis, which was earlier reported by The Washington Post.
Fireworks release tiny particles that can irritate lungs and trigger asthma attacks, along with gases like carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide and metals including aluminum, manganese and cadmium, according to the American Lung Association.
Even Freedom 250, the Trump-backed group that helped organize the event, acknowledged on its website that “air quality will decline” and visibility “may become compromised.” It advised children and older people to avoid extended time outdoors and advised residents to keep windows closed and to use air filters.
“It’s probably going to be incredibly hot and adding a firework show is just going to compound the air quality that’s already destined to be poor,” said Panagis Galiatsatos, a pulmonary physician and an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He encouraged people with respiratory conditions like asthma to stay indoors and watch the spectacle on TV.
“Sometimes we need to just be mindful of safety versus grandiosity,” said Dr. Galiatsatos.
Researchers at New York University found that particulate pollution spiked during the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks show in 2023, which exploded some 60,000 pyrotechnics over New York City.
The researchers said that concentrations of hazardous metals near the show peaked at more than 6.5 times the levels recorded earlier that same year, when smoke from Canadian wildfires had blanketed New York. It took as long as 12 hours for the air quality to return to normal levels after the display, and water samples collected from the East River contained more than double the levels of lead, nickel and antimony than measurements taken before the celebration.
Taken together, the findings show “a real fallout,” said Terry Gordon, a research professor at New York University Grossman School of Medicine. “It’s an acute, high-level exposure.”
On Saturday night, the Trump administration plans a pyrotechnic extravaganza more than 14 times as explosive as the Macy’s show.
“The noise and air pollution will be unprecedented,” said Dr. Gordon, who said he expected high levels of particulate pollution “heavily concentrated in heavy metals,” some of which may be toxic. Ultimately, wind speed and direction will dictate who faces the brunt of it and where the particles settle, Dr. Gordon added.
But it’s not just humans that could face side effects.
Birds are especially at risk. The sudden blasts of the fireworks scare them into flight, but they do not navigate well in the dark.
In a few cases, mass deaths have resulted. After New Year’s fireworks celebrated the arrival of 2025, more than 1,000 mountain finches were found dead near a town in Bulgaria’s Sredna Gora mountains. The birds showed fractured bones, ruptured organs and internal hemorrhages. Researchers determined that “acute severe stress” from the fireworks had led to collisions with trees, the ground or other birds.
Hundreds of birds, mostly starlings, littered the streets of Rome on Jan. 1, 2021. And a decade earlier, as many as 5,000 red-winged blackbirds were dead after fireworks in Beebe, Ark.
Then there are the terrified pets.
Dogs tremble. They drool. They try to hide by cramming themselves into spaces that are too small. They have accidents indoors and tear up clothes or furniture.
“They’re so anxious they just don’t know what to do with themselves,” said Allison Gross, the hospital director at the Union Veterinary Clinic in Capitol Hill.
Not all dogs react badly to fireworks, but a significant number do.
“It’s such a loud noise, and they can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from, if it’s a threat or not,” Dr. Gross said. Differences in hearing between humans and dogs may also play a role.
The best way to ease a dog’s anxiety, Dr. Gross said, is with a prescription sedative. Her dog, a boxer mix named Rooney, goes from whining and pacing in distress to curled up next to her on the couch after being given a fast-acting drug.
This year, given the scale of the fireworks and flyovers, her office is receiving more requests for sedatives than usual, Dr. Gross said. And some owners are planning to leave the city altogether, rather than endure the many-thousand explosions.
“If we stayed here it would just be a nightmare,” said Savanna Jones, who lives in Capitol Hill with her husband and golden retriever, Nina. Ms. Jones is planning to flee to a cabin in rural Virginia with a friend and another dog.
Roughly three miles from the center of the celebrations on Saturday, at the Smithsonian National Zoo, staff members are planning to make sure their elephants can escape the explosions inside.
“We do take into account that the fireworks are possibly a disturbance to the herd, so we usually make sure all of the elephants at least have indoor access overnight so they can choose to get away from the action as much as possible,” said Robbie Clark, the zoo’s elephant manager. (Miniature donkeys, on the other hand, are “city animals” and are used to the fracas, said Kenton Kerns, the curator of the Kids’ Farm exhibit at the zoo.)
Fireworks have enthralled people for millenniums, becoming a fixture at Lunar New Year celebrations in China, at Diwali festivals in India and for Bastille Day in France. For some, the deafening booms and sulfur aroma are irreplaceable. But a few places are experimenting with more environmentally friendly alternatives.
This year, cities including Chapel Hill and Salt Lake City will launch hundreds of light-up drones into the night sky for a towering display of digitally coordinated shapes and colors — without the smoke.
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