Good morning, it’s Monday, June 29 and you can expect the cloud cover to yield to sun, eventually (high 70s).
1. How a ranch explosion revealed an alleged illegal fireworks hub.
Illegal fireworks light up the sky with the downtown cityscape in the background for Independence Day, in Los Angeles, California on July 4, 2025. (Photo by Etienne LAURENT / AFP via Getty Images)
Here are two somewhat contradictory facts:
All fireworks, even sparklers, are outlawed within the city of Los Angeles.
Fireworks are a near-nightly fact of life in much of Los Angeles, where loud and colorful neon explosions populate the skies.
In a wild and utterly engrossing new story, my colleague Jessica Garrison seeks to understand where all these fireworks are coming from, why no one seems able to contain them and what all of this has to do with a deadly explosion last summer that rocked the little Northern California farm town of Esparto and left seven people dead.
Her story traces how black-market sales, regulatory gaps and California’s love of illegal fireworks allegedly collided with fatal results. The fallout now includes murder charges and new scrutiny of the state’s fragmented oversight system.
Jessica is our editor here at L.A. Material — she spends most of her time guiding our journalism and making all of our work much better than it deserves to be. But she’s also an outstanding reporter and writer in her own right (seriously, see her brilliant book The Devil’s Harvest and the embarrassment of journalism awards she’s racked up).
She covered the Esparto ranch explosion last summer for the Los Angeles Times and has been obsessed with this story ever since. In this piece, she untangles the complicated web around that ranch, which authorities allege was the hub of a business importing millions of pounds of dangerous fireworks from China and selling some of them on California’s booming black market. And she traces how events there have been allegedly deeply intertwined with L.A.’s nightly spectacles, which will likely reach a peak this 4th of July weekend.
2. A quick look at the week ahead.
TUESDAY: Mexico (L.A.’s other home team) faces Ecuador in the World Cup knockout round, so expect plenty of action at L.A. watch parties. Eater LA also has a list of the best sports bars for general World Cup viewing.
WEDNESDAY: In another World Cup match likely to generate big L.A. energy (though it will be played in Santa Clara), the United States plays Bosnia-Herzegovina.
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