BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) – A tractor-trailer filled with fireworks for the town’s Fourth of July celebration exploded as workers unloaded the truck Wednesday, unleashing several thunderous blasts that shot colorful flames into the sky. At least four people were killed and two were injured.

“It just all happened at once,” said Kevin McKenzie, who was mowing grass near the truck when it blew up. “Immediately it was all the fireworks going off with all the colors and the flames.”

Bonita Springs City Manager Gary Price said the blast happened at 2:10 p.m. as workers were transferring part of the load of fireworks to another truck for a display in nearby East Naples.

“In the process of transferring, breaking down the load, putting part of it on another truck, something set it off and the whole truck blew up,” Price said.

The blast occurred on a tip of vacant land at a state park in Bonita Springs, a city of about 30,000 near the Gulf of Mexico between Fort Myers and Naples.

Mary Mike Dearden, an employee of the Lover’s Key Beach Club and Resort, said she felt the earth shake. Guests at the resort saw smoke and heard explosions from the park, located less than a mile from the resort building.

“At the front desk we heard the explosion starting like a clap of thunder and then it kept rolling,” she said. “As it rolled on it felt like a jet breaking the sound barrier, but it kept going and we knew it was something else.”

Hours after the blast, smoke rose from a blackened pine tree and the charred remains of the two trucks, which had been parked back-to-back. A pickup truck that was parked a short distance away was also burned.

The blast left two people injured, including a man in critical condition who was transferred from the trauma unit of Lee Memorial Hospital to a Tampa hospital, said Alex Reichart, an administrative supervisor with Lee Memorial Health Systems. A woman was listed in good condition at Memorial’s HealthPark campus, he said.

The bodies remained at the scene overnight because authorities were concerned about the safety of the area and did not know whether all of the fireworks had detonated, said Lee County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Michael Maschmeier.

“Right now it’s still a dangerous situation,” Maschmeier said.

The state fire marshal’s office and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were handling the investigation.

The fireworks were from Sunset Fireworks of Dittmer, Mo. A person who answered the phone at the company’s main office said officials were on their way to the scene from Missouri.

Price said the company had orchestrated the city’s fireworks display last year and shot off the fireworks from a barge. The city spent $20,000 for a planned 30-minute show this year, he said.

“It’s just hard to believe,” Price said. “The event you’re setting up for everybody’s enjoyment to celebrate our anniversary of our country results in such tragedies. It’s just hard to believe.”

Lisa Douglass, a past president of the Naples Jaycees, said the civic organization had worked with the company for four years.

“These people that we’ve lost today are people that we’ve grown close to,” Douglass said. “They put on the best fireworks display, in my opinion, that I’ve ever seen.”

According to the company’s Web site, Sunset Fireworks has been in the pyrotechnics business for more than 40 years and provided fireworks for organizations including Walt Disney World, Six Flags Theme Parks, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The company was sued in February by two workers who were injured in explosions that killed two others at a suburban St. Louis fireworks plant in November 1999.

AP-ES-07-02-03 2124EDT

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