Between 700 and 800 tons of fireworks will go on sale in Iceland before New Year’s Eve, which is an increase by nearly 200 tons since last year. Icelanders are expected to purchase fireworks for about ISK 100 million (USD 1.58 million, EUR 1.10 million) this year.
“Work surrounding the sale of fireworks began late this year because there were so many emergency calls that our [volunteer workers] didn’t have any energy left for attending to it until a few days ago,” Jón Ingi Sigvaldason, sale and marketing director of ICE-SAR, the Association of Icelandic Rescue Teams, told mbl.is.
The about 100 volunteer search and rescue teams that are members of ICE-SAR hold a 50 percent market share of the sale of fireworks in Iceland and the profits go towards funding their operations.
Sigvaldsson said he expected 70 percent of the sale of fireworks to take place on December 30 and 31, as has been the case in previous years.
