Icelanders take New Year’s fireworks to heights

REYKJAVIK: While New Year’s Eve fireworks are hardly rare, Icelanders take the tradition to breathtaking heights, firing the dazzling incendiary devices from back gardens, streets, hilltops or city parks across their Nordic island.

Iceland’s law provides a brief window, from December 28 to January 6, when buying and shooting off fireworks is allowed, and citizens buy more pyrotechnics in a week than most Europeans do all year -- all in the name of charity.

Each year the nation’s 365,000 inhabitants buy around 600 tonnes of fireworks, more than a kilo and a half (three and a half pounds) per person, according to Statistics Iceland. The bulk of the devices go up on New Year’s Eve, turning the sky above the subarctic island into a glittering canopy from the capital Reykjavik to the smallest village. The group, which controls most of the fireworks trade, has relied on the annual sales to finance its activities for the rest of the year ever since.