RUMFORD – Fireworks return on the Fourth of July this year, and the town’s new manager, Jim Doar, will help set off the first display.

The Moontide Water Festival Committee, headed by Eddie Shurtleff, has raised more than $20,000 for the fireworks display that will be launched over the reflection pool of the Androscoggin River.

In past years, the event, billed as the largest fireworks display in the state, has drawn thousands of people.

Prior to the fireworks, a day-long festival of food, crafts, art works, and flea markets will take place downtown along Congress, River and Exchange streets, at the reflection pool parking lot, and at Veterans Memorial Park at the end of Congress Street.

Among the other activities is a Child Identification Program sponsored by the Masons. This free program will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the green. Children will have a brief videotape interview, fingerprinting, and a DNA swab. The data will then be given to the child’s parents.

The oldies band Cahoots will perform downtown from 4 to 8 p.m.

Just prior to the launching of the fireworks display, a military flyover is scheduled.

Fireworks will begin at dusk, or around 9:15 p.m.

Shurtleff said the theme for the event is patriotism and the free enterprise system, with a special focus on local War of Independence veterans as well as Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion.

A special Betsy Ross-designed flag display and a copy of the U.S. Constitution will be on exhibit at Veterans Memorial Park and the rotary green.

Dixfield artist Robert Acheson designed the Minuteman logo that is being used in brochures and other materials for the event.