Every Fourth of July, Americans look up at the same sky. The booms, the colors, the smoke; it’s as American as it gets. But while everybody’s watching the show, almost nobody’s thinking about who’s getting paid for it. The fireworks industry in the United States is a multi-billion dollar business, and the family that sits at the top of it has been running the game for over 170 years.
Total fireworks industry revenue in the United States hit $2.8 billion in 2024, according to data from the American Pyrotechnics Association. That number includes everything from the sparklers you hand your little cousin to the massive aerial shell displays over stadiums and city skylines.
The global market is valued at $3.33 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $4.79 billion by 2031.
Consumer fireworks revenue skyrocketed during the pandemic, going from around $1 billion nationally in 2019 to $1.9 billion in 2020, eclipsing $2 billion for the first time in 2021 and staying above that level every year since.
People were stuck at home, the government was sending checks, and apparently everybody decided to spend it on explosives. The industry has never looked back.
The Fourth of July alone accounts for a massive portion of annual revenue. More than $1 billion is spent annually on fireworks for Independence Day celebrations in the United States alone. One holiday. One billion dollars. That’s the power of a tradition.
Before getting to the family that runs American fireworks, there’s a foundational fact that changes how you see the whole industry: the United States does not make its own fireworks. Not really.
U.S. fireworks companies rely almost entirely on China, which produces 99% of consumer fireworks and 90% of professional display fireworks.
Around 200 B.C., the Chinese accidentally invented firecrackers by tossing bamboo into fire; bamboo stalks have air pockets that can expand and explode in extreme heat, creating a loud bang. Chemists became more creative over time, adding sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate.
By the 12th century, fireworks had been fine-tuned and were being shot off in China’s imperial court for entertainment.
The fireworks made their way to Europe, then to America, and the import relationship has been locked in ever since. China dominates global supply, accounting for nearly 90% of production and exports, with Liuyang in Hunan Province often described as the “fireworks capital of the world.” The craft is passed down generationally, made in factories and even finished in homes by hand. That dependency is creating serious turbulence right now; more on that in a moment.
If there is a royal family in the fireworks world, it’s the Gruccis. And their story reads less like a business origin and more like an American immigrant dream that survived tragedy, war, the Great Depression, and a factory explosion that killed two family members.
What began 165 years ago as a tiny business has today become a multi-million dollar pyrotechnics company. Over that period, Fireworks by Grucci has been run by five, and soon to be six, generations of Gruccis.
The Grucci family traces the company history in America to 1870, when Angelo Lanzetta brought his fireworks artistry to Elmont, Long Island, from Bari, Italy. Lanzetta was a craftsman first, a man who cared more about the perfection of a single shell than the scale of a display. He came through Ellis Island with a shoebox full of fireworks formulas and built something from nothing. After his death in 1899, his son Anthony carried on the business and eventually brought in his nephew, Felix Grucci Sr., as an apprentice. Felix would become the man who turned a family hobby into a full-time enterprise.The company struggled through the Great Depression, nearly went under, and spent years doing local Fourth of July shows and Italian feast days within a two-hour drive of Long Island. Then 1976 changed everything.
The company’s big breakthrough came when the Gruccis stepped outside the region to light up the Charles River during Arthur Fiedler’s Boston Pops concert celebrating the nation’s bicentennial, a televised performance that brought them to national attention.
Three years later, they made the move that defined the family legacy. In 1979, the Gruccis accepted an invitation to represent the United States at the annual International Fireworks Competition in Monte Carlo. They became the first American firm ever to win the contest, beating out teams from France, Denmark, Spain, and Italy. Author George Plimpton, who accompanied the family to Monte Carlo, said simply: “Here they were, the champions of the world.” The New York press gave them their nickname after that win: America’s First Family of Fireworks.
The Gruccis parlayed the Monte Carlo medal into a major growth spurt. Invitations poured in from all over the country. They provided displays for the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid in 1980, Ronald Reagan’s presidential inauguration in 1981, and the Brooklyn Bridge centennial celebration in 1983.
Then came November 26, 1983; the day that nearly ended it all. In 1983, an explosion leveled the factory on Long Island, killing Phil’s father, Jimmy Grucci, and a cousin. Phil was a sophomore in college at the time, studying finance, not yet thinking about taking over the family business. Everything changed overnight.
Forced to go into debt, the family settled neighbors’ lawsuits against them, fought off residents who opposed allowing them to relocate, and successfully rebuilt their business through the sheer force of reputation and skillful financial maneuvering.
They came back stronger. Fireworks by Grucci has produced fireworks displays for seven consecutive U.S. presidential inaugurations beginning with Ronald Reagan, displays at four Olympic Games, and in 2014 set a Guinness World Record, firing 479,651 shells in just six minutes on New Year’s Eve over Dubai.
Today, Fireworks by Grucci is a global business that employs 160 factory workers, 30 office workers, and 400 part-time pyrotechnicians across the world. Every year, the company produces 200 fireworks programs in the U.S. Shows range in price from $3,500 to in excess of $10 million depending on the scale.
Phil Grucci bought out his aunt and uncle’s shares in 2012 and took over as sole owner and president in 2013. His children and nephew are now part of the business, making it a sixth-generation family operation. What started with a man carrying fireworks formulas in a shoebox from Italy is now a multi-million dollar international pyrotechnics company with military contracts and Guinness World Records.
Grucci also diversified in ways nobody expected. After 9/11, when there were no celebrations and no reason for fireworks, Phil partnered with the Department of Defense to create mock grenades and military bombs for training exercises, devices nearly identical in sound and effect to what soldiers experience in actual combat. Military manufacturing now generates a little more than half of the company’s revenue.
The fireworks industry going into this Fourth of July, America’s 250th birthday, is facing the biggest threat in years, and it has nothing to do with weather or safety regulations.
Most fireworks sold in the U.S. are made in China and now face tariffs of at least 30%. Some importers simply halted deliveries to avoid the import taxes when tariffs briefly reached 145% earlier this year. The American Pyrotechnics Association has been urgently lobbying the Trump administration for an exemption.
Because it’s not possible to simply open production in the U.S., there are limited raw materials available to make fireworks and no factories or trained workers who can handle the potentially dangerous products; the industry is seasonal, making a year-round domestic factory largely unsustainable.
The stakes are especially high because 2026 is America’s 250th birthday, and the industry had been planning for the biggest celebration in a generation. Bruce Zoldan, president of Phantom Fireworks, one of the largest fireworks companies in the U.S., said: “The biggest concern will be for 2026, the 250th birthday of America, because that typically, that production is happening right now and right now, it’s at a standstill.”
A billion-dollar industry, built on an immigrant’s shoebox full of Italian formulas, is now caught in the middle of a global trade war. The sky still lights up tonight, but the business behind it is navigating the most uncertain terrain in decades.
