Concord, NC Fire Regulations: Fireworks (2026)

North Carolina tightly restricts fireworks statewide, and the City of Concord relies on that state law rather than a separate consumer-fireworks ordinance. Under G.S. 14-410, it is unlawful for anyone to manufacture, sell, possess, use or discharge 'pyrotechnics' except at a permitted public exhibition run by a licensed display operator. G.S. 14-414 exempts only a narrow set of consumer items from the ban: explosive caps for toy pistols (not over 0.25 gram each); snake and glow worms; smoke devices; trick noisemakers such as party poppers, string poppers and snappers (each not over 16 milligrams of mixture); wire sparklers (not over 100 grams of mixture per item); and 'other sparkling devices' that emit showers of sparks, do not detonate or explode, do not spin, are hand-held or ground-based, cannot propel themselves through the air, and contain no more than 75 grams of compound per tube (or 200 grams total for multiple tubes). This means firecrackers, bottle rockets, Roman candles, mortars, aerial shells and any device that flies or explodes are illegal in Concord and across North Carolina. A separate state fireworks display permit is issued by the county (or an authorized city) under G.S. 14-413. Concord's own open-burning ordinance also references that fireworks used in connection with a permitted fire must meet NFPA and state fire-code standards.