The Big Bay Boom incident occurred on Wednesday, July 4, 2012, when 7,000 fireworks, intended for a 17-minute display, discharged prematurely and simultaneously from four barges and a pier. The entire cache exploded in less than a minute. The event was the Big Bay Boom, an annual Independence Day fireworks display in San Diego, California. The event has been put on since 2001 and is claimed to be one of the largest fireworks displays in the United States; half a million people had congregated on the shores of San Diego Bay to watch the show. The primary sponsor is the Port of San Diego and the fireworks are presented by Garden State Fireworks, Inc. The coordinated fireworks are triggered by computer, and the premature discharge was blamed on a corrupted computer file. There were no injurie