The countdown is on until fireworks light up the sky over the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis. Red, White and Boom is returning after a five-year hiatus with a 16-minute firework show on Thursday night.

“This year we’re back and we’re back with a big old boom,” said Aisling Reynolds, the downtown parks event coordinator for the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board. “You’ll want to be down by 8 o’clock because it does get quite crowded, we expect over 40,000 people joining us.”

The Parks and Rec Board will be monitoring the weather closely but only expect a cancellation if there is severe weather.

“We will wait as long as possible to make the decision,” said Reynolds.

It’s one of more than a dozen fireworks shows scheduled across the Twin Cities on the Fourth. There’s expected to be fireworks illuminating backyards too.

“Fireworks can be beautiful and incredibly dangerous,” said Dr. Vanessa Slots, a pediatrician with M Health Fairview. “Having fireworks at our home or around people or children really run the risk of injury, most commonly burns but we have certainly seen injury where people have lost their eye sight and certainly severely enough where they have died.”

She explained physicians most commonly see adults with firework injuries but children are affected too.

“Even the simple sparklers we like to give our kids to run around with can be over 1,000 degrees and so something like that touching a child could cause a second or third-degree burn really easily,” said Slots. “Second-degree burns, where we have blisters, sometimes that area needs to be cleaned. Those blisters may need to be cut, lanced, drained, that skin removed. Then, if we move into third-degree burns where we’re really looking at charred skin then that requires surgery.”

She points out there is only so much that can be controlled even for the most cautious person.

“That firework could fall over and come right at you, a family member, at your home and catch it on fire,” she said. “The wind could blow suddenly and cause injury or damage, and the other risk is if it’s a dud and it doesn’t go off right away.”

For those who plan to go ahead with a home fireworks display, Dr. Slots recommends wearing eye protection, carefully placing fireworks in the ground, keeping spectators far away, and having water handy to douse both duds and fireworks that have successfully gone off.

“We should really leave the fireworks for the professionals,” said Dr. Slots.