Victor was working in his field near Triq il-Qadi, Naxxar, when he noticed smoke rising from the nearby fireworks factory. Moments later, he heard a blast.Sensing danger, he rushed into a small room nearby to take shelter.His children, who were close by and had been planning to join him that morning, immediately called to check on him. Victor told them to stay away.Then the factory exploded.“The force threw me to the ground,” he recalled. “I’m lucky to be alive.”The room around him collapsed, but a central supporting beam remained standing – something Victor believes may have saved his life. Minutes later, his sons helped him out of debris.Victor and one of his sons were subsequently hospitalised with minor injuries and shock.“I had three dogs. They all ran away. My birds are dead. This field was my life. I have nothing left,” he told this newsroom.The explosion occurred at around 6.30am on 1 June 2026. Emergency services later confirmed that the blast originated at the Lourdes fireworks factory in Naxxar. The shockwave was felt across northern Malta, shattering windows in Qawra and ripping interior doors from their frames.No one died. Yet the explosion has revived questions Malta has been grappling with for more than fifteen years: whether enough has been done to implement the lessons from previous fireworks tragedies, and whether authorities have a complete picture of the industry they regulate.Twenty-Four Recommendations. One Adopted.In the wake of a series of deadly fireworks factory accidents – including the 2010 Farrugia Brothers explosion in Fontana that killed five members of the same family – the government appointed a commission of experts, chaired by University of Malta Rector Professor Alfred Vella, to examine safety in Malta’s fireworks industry. Over the course of a year, the commission collected evidence, analysed accident data and produced a technical report containing 24 recommendations aimed at making the sector safer.These included the creation of a specialised chemical testing centre, stricter testing of imported chemicals, limits on the use of potassium perchlorate and improvements to the transport of fireworks materials.Out of those 24 recommendations, only one was adopted. The single measure that made it into law was a prohibition on mixing potassium chlorate with certain metals and sulphur, to prevent accidental detonations. The other 23 gathered dust.Six years later, in 2016, a study published in the scientific journal Xjenza, co-authored by Vella, revealed another uncomfortable finding. Dust samples collected across Malta between 2011 and 2013 suggested that close to 100 tonnes of potassium perchlorate were being used annually in the country’s fireworks industry. Official import records at the time showed just two tonnes a year.When Journalist Yannick Pace put that discrepancy to the Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security, the response was a statement that officials “follow the existing Explosives Ordinance and Control of Fireworks and Other Explosives Regulations that have been in effect for a long time, and see to it that the law is being observed.”The Chemical Nobody Is CountingPotassium perchlorate is the oxidising agent at the heart of modern Maltese fireworks. That is not an accident – It was a deliberate policy shift, driven in part by evidence that the chemical it replaced was killing people.Potassium chlorate, the older oxidiser, is more volatile and caused a string of fatal accidents in Malta. From 2011 onwards, the industry gradually shifted to perchlorate, and the death toll from manufacturing accidents fell significantly. The mortality rate from fireworks accidents had been running at 2.3 individuals per year over three decades. The switch to perchlorate, experts argued at the time, almost entirely eliminated that risk. However, the switch came with a different set of risks, ones that were slower, subtler and easier to ignore.Research shows that Malta’s dust and soil now contains perchlorate at concentrations exceeding those found in the United States. The chemical has been linked to reduced thyroid function, with particular concern for iodine-deficient populations. The long-term effects on public health are not yet fully understood.An expert advisor with direct knowledge of the research told this newsroom that the situation demands action. “Perchlorate should be controlled. It should be accounted for. It is one of the controlled materials because of its potential use in terrorism. It can easily be controlled, but there is a reluctance to do so.”“Fireworks are not an essential commodity. They are entertainment. That framing is not an argument for banning them. It is an argument for proportionality: if the chemicals required for entertainment can blow apart a factory, scatter debris across a neighbourhood, kill birds, send farmers flying and deprive three communities of their festa preparations, then having a centralised accounting system for those chemicals should not be optional,” he told Lovin Malta. The conclusion is not that perchlorate should be banned. It is that it should be counted.A Pyrotechnic who spoke to this newsroom on condition of anonymity, agreed. “There should be a regulated quota on perchlorate,” the source said.The Regulation That Exists on PaperUnder the Control of Fireworks and Other Explosives Regulations, licensed factories are required to keep a register of the amount of perchlorate obtained and used. But as fireworks inspector Servolo Delicata acknowledged in 2016, there is no central database where that data is collected. The register “is still in its infancy and is not audited properly,” he said at the time.A decade on, this newsroom asked whether that had changed. We have submitted questions to the Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security and to the Civil Protection Department and are awaiting responses.What the law does require is an annual inspection of each factory, carried out by inspectors appointed by the Minister for the Interior under Regulation 16A of the Explosives Regulations. These inspectors are empowered to enter any factory, carry out inspections and make recommendations.Speaking to Lovin Malta, a pyrotechnic source who wished to remain anonymous described the inspection regime in practice:“Every year, an inspectorate visits the factory once to renew the licence,” the source said, before adding: “It should be more frequent, to make sure everything is up to standard.”To rephrase – One inspection a year is required to renew a licence at a facility storing chemicals capable of levelling a building and shattering windows half a kilometre away.Too Many Feasts, Too Few FactoriesOne thread running through this story is geography, specifically the concentration of Malta’s fireworks production in a small number of shared facilities.A source with direct knowledge of the industry explained that Gozo has no licensed fireworks factories. After the 2010 explosion in Fontana, most manufacturing activity on the island ceased. Gozo’s feasts now rely on fireworks produced in Malta, transported via an alternative route to the ferry channel and escorted by police.“The result is a monopoly on the Maltese side, and overcrowding within individual factories,” the source told the Newsroom.The source went on to say that the solution is more factories, not fewer, each smaller and more tightly controlled:“More but smaller factories. Safer for everyone.”Although Malta has more than 100 fireworks groups, only around 35 licensed fireworks factories operate across the islands. As a result, individual factories often manufacture and store fireworks for several village feasts at once, concentrating large quantities of pyrotechnic material in a single site.The Lourdes factory in Naxxar, which exploded on 1st June, was not serving just one festa. At the time of the blast, three separate feast organisations were using it to prepare their fireworks: the San Ġwann feast, the Naxxar feast and the Fontana festa. All three will now be directly affected by the loss of the facility.“There could be an overpopulation in certain factories,” the pyrotechnics source acknowledged. Some clubs have statutes that restrict factory use to their own festa – St Philip’s was cited as an example – but such restrictions are not universal or legally mandated.The structure of the Naxxar factory, according to another pyrotechnic industry insider, will probably not be rebuilt, considering that the entire site has been destroyed. What the Industry Gets Right, and What It Does NotIt would be misleading to portray Malta’s fireworks industry as entirely unregulated or reckless. In several respects, Malta’s framework is stricter than elsewhere in Europe.The pyrotechnics source pointed out that Malta prohibits members of the public from firing even category F1 and F2 consumer fireworks without a licence, a restriction in place since 1999 that, the source argues, explains why Malta has no record of civilian casualties from consumer fireworks. The Netherlands is only now introducing similar restrictions, effective January 2027.Obtaining a manufacturing licence is not straightforward. A Licence B requires two years of apprenticeship followed by a rigorous exam. Progressing to a Licence A, which permits full manufacture, requires four years in total. Licences must be renewed every five years and require attendance at a minimum of four police-organised lectures.There are currently around 3,000 licensed pyrotechnic personnel in Malta, a number the source defended as proportionate given that the general public cannot independently handle pyrotechnics.The association has also invested in professional development, producing Malta-specific qualifications in pyrochemistry and pyroengineering up to Level 5, accredited internationally.But professional training and institutional pride do not resolve the core accountability gap. Two of the three chemicals that make up a firework, potassium chlorate and potassium nitrate, are rigidly controlled. Only the Armed Forces of Malta can store them, and factories must collect them directly from the AFM within strict annual quotas.Potassium perchlorate, the third and increasingly dominant chemical, has no equivalent system. It is imported through commercial channels, distributed by private traders, and tracked, where it is tracked at all, only in factory registers that nobody audits centrally.“The fuel and the oxidiser make the firework,” the expert advisor said. “The first two oxidisers are rigidly controlled. No one can store them except the Armed Forces of Malta. They could easily apply the same control to perchlorate. There is a reluctance to do so.”Lovin Malta submitted questions to the relevant ministries, departments and regulatory bodies prior to publication. This article will be updated if and when responses are received.•