‘Fireball’ at Boise New Year’s Potato Drop shatters glass, video shows

A “fireball” during the New Year’s Eve Potato Drop fireworks show appeared to shatter glass at a downtown Boise building, injuring a child, according to video and witness accounts.

Boise Fire Department spokesperson Lauren Melink confirmed in an email to the Idaho Statesman that fire crews and Ada County EMS responded to West Bannock Street for reports of a child injured by glass that broke during the fireworks show immediately following the midnight potato drop.

Melink said the child was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The Idaho Potato Drop did not respond to requests for comment Thursday morning.

Video from the event, which has taken place outside the statehouse since 2016, showed the 17-foot-long potato dropping from a crane as usual. But immediately after the enormous potato finished its descent, an explosion erupted from an area where fireworks were being lit. The video, filmed by Boise resident Joshua Dougherty, includes the sound of glass shattering as the explosion occurred.

“I saw that giant fireball blast, felt it in my chest!” Dougherty told the Statesman via Facebook Messenger.

Dougherty, who was standing near the corner of Capitol Boulevard and Bannock Street, said he “immediately heard a ton of glass shattering, felt it raining down on me” and saw a child bleeding from her face.

Dougherty’s video shows shattered glass strewn across the sidewalk and broken panes in several window frames of the downtown building.

The Boise man said bystanders quickly called paramedics to the scene, and the fireworks show carried on without interruption.

A post of Dougherty’s video shared in the Treasure Valley Police Scanner Facebook group garnered hundreds of comments and shares Thursday morning, including accounts from other attendees who said they saw or felt the blast, were hit by debris from the shattered windows or witnessed the paramedics’ response to the injured child.