Holiday emergencies include an Indiana pedestrian bridge collapse and fireworks-related fatalities in Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Montana, where a girl was electrocuted on air conditioning equipment after cliimbing on a roof to see fireworks.

OCRACOKE, N.C.—Two workers died after a fireworks truck exploded yesterday morning on a remote North Carolina island. Three other workers were injured when the truck exploded as the workers prepared for the annual Independence Day fireworks display on Ocracoke Island, according to Hyde County spokeswoman Jamie Tunnell. The men worked for Melrose South Pyrotechnics near Rock Hill, S.C. The company has sent an official to work with investigators.

As we head into a star-spangled weekend, these annual events are guaranteed to put some red, white and blue into your July Fourth outings. Check our weekly calendar, on Page D5, for more things to do. And don’t miss The Times-Dispatch and TimesDispatch.com tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday for your neighbors’ thoughts about what freedom means and coverage of Fourth festivities.

Lack of bucks means less bang this July Fourth for many cash-strapped cities. Fireworks shows are being canceled or scaled back, mostly in small and midsize cities, as municipalities’ tax revenue dries up with the slow economy and falling home prices. Funding from corporate sponsorships also has fizzled as businesses deal with economic problems of their own.

The Fourth of July fireworks in McIntire Park should continue after this year, some local leaders agree, but there’s no consensus on how that should be done. “We should absolutely figure out a way to save the fireworks,“ Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris said in an interview. Charlottesville’s Save the Fireworks Committee, a band of local businesses that has for seven years planned and funded the city’s annual Independence Day celebration, is dropping the festival after this year, committee members announced Wednesday.

Two families are suing the town of Vienna over a 2007 Fourth of July fireworks show at which a group of spectators were seriously injured.