The off-season is here, and you’re begging to get back into the boating season. While chomping at the proverbial bit, you begin to sort through your boat equipment. You find your pyrotechnic safety items. We’re talking about your flares, your meteors and your orange smokes.

According to Coast Guard regulations the shelf life for pyrotechnic devices is three (3) years from manufacture. It is also suggested that you keep the “just” expired flares, smokes and meteors. While they don’t meet the federal requirements, in all likelihood they probably still work. If you keep rotating your new flares with your “just” expired flares, that means when your new flares expire, your old flares will have been onboard for six years.

Let’s focus on flares for the moment, but the following generalizations are also true for all pyrothecnics. The federal minimum standard requires three flares. Should you ever need to ignite them, you’ll find that a single flare’s life isn’t very long. Should you fire off your flare at an inopportune moment, you’ve wasted what is probably 33% of your chances of being located by a passing ship or plane – if you’ve decided to only meet the minimum federal standards of three flares. A very sobering thought!

If you keep your older (just expired) flares on the boat, attempt to light these off first. Then, if they do work, you’ve increased your number of flares by a factor of two. If they don’t work, well nothing ventured is nothing gained.

But what do you do about the second generation (older than 6 years) of retired flares? The question you need to ask yourself is; “Do I think they will ignite?” If you don’t feel confident keeping these second generation retired flares, then you will need to dispose of them, safely and legally.

Pyrotechnic Disposal
You have two choices when considering disposal of flares and other pyrotechnical equipment.