Wayne, NJ Fire Regulations: Fireworks (2026)

Wayne Township Code § 14-23, in the Fire Bureau chapter, makes it unlawful for any person to ignite, display, possess or use in any manner whatsoever, within any commercial structure, any pyrotechnics, sparklers and smoke/fog machines. The list is wider than fireworks alone: sparklers and smoke or fog machines are named, so a stage effect or a theatrical fog unit is caught the same way as a firework. The word possess matters too, because the ban reaches a device sitting unused inside the building.

The only exemption in subsection B covers testing or training exercises conducted by the Township Fire Bureau, Fire Department or other recognized fire brigade. Nothing in the section creates a permit route for a private operator inside a commercial structure.

Township parks are handled by a different section. Under § 129-20(B)(2), no person in a park or recreation area has in his or her possession, or sets off, discharges or burns, any firecrackers, torpedo rockets or other fireworks, firecrackers or explosives of flammable material, or throws them into those areas from adjacent lands or highways. At the discretion of the Department of Parks and Recreation, permits can be given for properly supervised fireworks in designated park areas. Under § 129-20(E), the Department of Parks and Recreation and park attendants enforce the rules and can eject violators and seize and confiscate any property, thing or device used in violation, and the Wayne Police Department also enforces. Filming that uses pyrotechnics on a set also triggers the Fire Bureau permit in § 14-21. Any order of the local enforcement agency can be appealed to the Passaic County Construction Board of Appeals under § 14-22.