Evgeny Kuznetsov apparently learned a valuable fire safety lesson the hard way.
While in the United States during his NHL career, Kuznetsov set off some fireworks for what he described as “some American holiday,” likely the Fourth of July, and did not properly dispose of them. He told the story of what happened next during an interview on KHL club Salavat Yulaev’s VK channel.
“I launched fireworks at my house once,” Kuznetsov said, as per a sports.ru transcript and translation by Google Translate. “I bought them for some American holiday: the day of something or other. We gathered the kids, and everything went flying. I took the boxes and threw them in the trash bins so as not to ruin the pavement.
“I’m lying in the bedroom and see a light: red-blue, red-blue. I think I’m drunk. I lie down on the other side, and there it is again, red-blue, red-blue. And then there’s a knock on the door. I go out – the fire brigade has arrived. It turned out the fireworks needed to be doused with water, but I just threw them in. The containers are burning, the wood is burning. It’s a good thing the neighbor wasn’t asleep and called the emergency services in time.”
According to Homewood Disposal Service, the proper way to dispose of used fireworks is to completely submerge them in a bucket of water overnight, place them in a resealable plastic bag to maintain moisture, and throw them away in your regular garbage container. Doing so will avoid the unplanned visit from a local fire department that Kuznetsov got.
Kuznetsov recently finished his second season back in the KHL after returning to Russia following his NHL career with the Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes. He split the 2025-26 campaign between Metallurg Magnitogorsk and Salavat Yulaev, and will be a free agent again this summer.
While he will continue his on-ice career, hopefully, his days as an amateur pyrotechnics operator are over.
