This is the fire station across the street from where I live. It's small and attached to the much larger bus station.

This morning, starting at about 8:30, I was awakened by a series of excessively loud explosions. Now, I have become acustomed to the usual testing of sirens and such through out the day so that I don't even notice usually. But explosions are something quite different. I scramble out of bed and pull back the curtains to reveal...

...that the fire fighters are setting off huge bottle rockets in the parking lot!

I've spent most of the day in the apartment doing some work so I've had an opportunity to observe them all day. From time to time, a small group of them will walk out into the parking lot and fire a few of them off. But get this, they aren't using bottles as the name would imply. They are holding on to the stick with one hand while they light the fuse with the other, allowing it to take off from their hand! And these guys' are fire fighters!