Mount Rushmore Fireworks Revival To Feature Trump But No Social Distancing

A decade after being banned amid concerns about wildfires and groundwater pollution, and despite protests by Native Americans and recommendations from public health officials to avoid public gatherings, fireworks will once again be exploding over Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of western South Dakota on Friday, anticipating July 4.

In January, Trump recounted a conversation he said he had with Noem about reversing a 2010 decision by the National Park Service to discontinue an annual tradition begun in 1998 of Fourth of July fireworks displays at Mount Rushmore.

Trump's claim of having settled the matter was made more than a month before the National Park Service began a formal "evaluation assessment" and month-long public comment period to decide whether to resume permitting and hosting the Mount Rushmore fireworks.

In a 2017 document made public by The Washington Post, the NPS noted that a minimum of 27 wildfires had been started around Mount Rushmore during annual fireworks displays between 1998 and 2009, and warned that "July fire danger risk can be high to very high" in the Black Hills area.

A former NPS employee who was in charge of the fire management program at Mount Rushmore and six other Black Hills park sites, and who saw trees set ablaze more than 1,000 feet from the fireworks' launch point, says shooting fireworks over the national monument's 1,278 acres of forest is "insane."

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