Firefighters hate the Fourth of July, the holiday dedicated to blowing up stuff, because when amateurs try to blow up stuff, they often blow up stuff they didn’t intend to blow up. One of my friends has a particular unfortunate knack of drawing disasters to his neighborhood. One July 4th, a house in his neighborhood burnt down due to a stray firecracker landing on a wooden roof. A few years later, he moved to another neighborhood, and the next July 4th, a house in his neighborhood burnt down due to a stray firecracker landing on a wooden roof.

The Seattle Fire Department lets you view all the incidents to which they responded, and the year I checked (the year of the second house-burning-down), the Seattle Fire Department responded to twice as many reports on the fourth as they did on the third.