Four Dutch men aged around thirty are standing on an unpaved path in the middle of a pine forest in Poland. It is quiet and dark. There is no house, no shop, no gas station, no lamppost for miles around. The men have just gotten out of the car and are shining LED light sticks to see something.
At the edge of an open field, where the trees give way, they place cardboard fireworks boxes. Two men make drones take off; They monitor the environment via the controllers with live image. The other two men look over the packages they call ‘blocks’ and ‘cakes’. One holds the camera ready while the other touches the fuse sticking out of the cardboard with a lighter. “He’s coming!”
As soon as the spark ignites, they run back and point their camera lens upwards. swirl down. Clouds of pink and purple smoke linger in the night.
These are the adventures of Sven and Koen, a duo that has been making fireworks videos for YouTube for years. They prefer to travel to Poland to buy and light thousands of euros worth of fireworks that are prohibited in the Netherlands. The men also do stunts that they also record for their followers: they explode flares under natural ice and throw 75,000 firecrackers off a bridge. Their channel Sven&Koen has 463,000 subscribers and approximately 250 fireworks videos, some of which have been viewed more than a million times.
Sven and Koen are not the only ‘fireworks YouTubers’. A search yields about forty other Dutch accounts, large and small, most of which have existed for years. The big ones, in addition to Sven&Koen, for example KingAlmightyyy (594,000 subscribers), not only make great videos but also create content about candy, fast vehicles and all kinds of exciting adventures. Most accounts focus entirely on fireworks, including AW Fireworks (192,000 subscribers), PyroteamDelft (162,000), Xtremerides1 (102,000) and EindhovenVuurwerk (99,000). There are also small makers, such as Vuurvent (44,000), PyroFire (29,500) and Papa&Geert (9,600).
The makers are almost all men. They light fireworks in front of the camera and edit their images into spectacular videos, full of loud bangs, exciting music and scenes of border controls, fines or chases in which they are apparently fleeing from the police. Many YouTubers promote their videos on TikTok and Instagram.
The YouTubers create content about buying and lighting legal fireworks, category F1, which are for sale in November and December at stores such as Xenos, Aldi and Action. But much more often the men keep a flame on fireworks, which are illegal in the Netherlands. Sometimes in the Netherlands, but preferably across the border: in Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Spain, a few even end up in China. It is usually easier to buy heavy fireworks abroad. The fireworks fanatics sometimes spend almost 10,000 euros and sell their purchases on the spot. Preferably in the dark, in a secluded place where the chance of being caught is not so great.
The men promote fireworks stores, film gigantic fireworks boxes with skulls and one-meter flares with gold buttons. They name brands and explain what is in a cake: how many millimeters the tubes are, how many shots the thing fires, in how much time, how loud it pops, how expensive it is and how many grams of powder are used in it. And to which category the fireworks shown belong.
In the Netherlands, consumers are allowed to set off category F1 fireworks, such as sparklers and firecrackers, all year round. During New Year’s Eve, category F2 fireworks are also permitted, such as cakes, ground flowers and fountains. These fireworks may only be purchased in the last three days of the year. The rules have been tightened since 2020 and, among other things, flares and Roman candles are prohibited. Fireworks from categories F3 and F4 are also not permitted. Think of cobras, mortar bombs, shells, butterfly bombs, avalanche arrows and nitrates.
Depending on the severity of the violation, you can receive a fine, a criminal record, community service or even a prison sentence in the Netherlands for lighting illegal fireworks, says a police spokesperson. “Even if the lighting of fireworks can only be seen in a video.” Filming fireworks in itself is not prohibited.
Bright orange firelight
The fireworks that YouTubers find across the border are often F2 and F3 material. As shown in the videos, these fireworks are found on the shelves at gas stations, markets and specialized stores in countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic. In the videos, the makers emphasize that they do not take their purchases with them to the Netherlands, because that is a punishable offense. Sometimes disclaimers appear: ‘do not light dangerous fireworks’, ‘do not take fireworks from abroad home’ and ‘these images are for entertainment’. Encouraging viewers to get started with illegal fireworks can be punishable.
Various accounts show how men also set off illegal F4 fireworks in the Netherlands. For example, the makers of EindhovenVuurwerk – who are not recognizable in the picture – show how a Cobra 20 Ultimate, wrapped in a thick pack of paper, explodes on an abandoned basketball court and causes a rain of paper shreds. In another video they tie five hundred Funke Truenos, a type of heavy firecracker (F3), together with a fast fuse and light them in one go. A series of hard thuds follows. A bright orange glow of fire spreads across the ground, followed by thick clouds of smoke.
KingAlmightyyy also fires heavy equipment, including Cobras and mortar arrows. It remains unclear where the YouTubers get these fireworks from. Sometimes KingAlmightyyy buys something from a man who appears blurred on screen.
Who watches these videos? Teenagers in particular, as can be seen from the comments below the videos. That image is confirmed recently qualitative research by VeiligheidNLthe knowledge center for injury prevention, into fireworks use and risk behavior among young people. Researchers spoke to 148 children aged 12 to 15 years old. Most said they regularly watch fireworks videos in the run-up to New Year’s Eve. They want to know what is for sale, where they can get them and learn about fireworks that they did not know yet, says Martijntje Bakker, director of VeiligheidNL. The young people especially like to watch explosions of illegal fireworks such as cobras and nitrates. “The attraction lies in the tension: seeing things that are not allowed and are dangerous.”
According to Bakker, the videos are infectious. “You look and think: I want this too.” Those who see a lot of these types of videos are more likely to experiment themselves and imitate risky behavior. Sometimes this manifests itself in imitating tricks or challenges. For example, three years ago there was a fireworks challenge in which young people had to stomp on ground flowers. “That led to horrible burns on feet,” says Bakker.
Boys with their father
In the long lines at fireworks shops in Baarle-Hertog, Belgium, a magnet for fireworks enthusiasts, boys know the fireworks videos. That’s how they ended up in the border village: their favorite YouTubers, such as PyroteamDelft and PyroFire, buy fireworks here. In addition, Belgium is attractive because there are fireworks for sale that are prohibited in the Netherlands. The boys from the line often come with their father, who drives, and then friends can come along. The men say the fireworks are cheaper here. Some people buy in bulk: they carry weekend bags or push a trolley into the store.
There is a sense of solidarity in the shops, everyone is here with the same goal: buying fireworks that are illegal in the Netherlands and are only allowed to cross the border at the end of the year – maximum 25 kilos. The conversations quickly turn to the police. “Is there border control?” asks a young man with shaved hair. “YouTuber Ruben Koet was stopped here in the village,” he says. “Oh, I feel bad, what do the police want to do?” says another. “Tomorrow we’re going to have a nice fire!”
Young people also say they simply find fireworks beautiful: the colours, the effects and the explosions
“Doing something together that is not actually allowed, that creates a bond,” says Bakker, director of VeiligheidNL. “It’s cool, and belonging is important at that age.” The research also shows that young people simply like fireworks: the colours, the effects and the explosions. The study also shows that young people are often unable to distinguish between the different categories of fireworks.
Several YouTubers have come into contact with the police and the judiciary in recent years, both at home and abroad. Online you can see how officers in Poland and the Czech Republic search the cars of Dutch YouTubers and issue fines. Sven and Koen recently rushed out of the Polish forest when a woodcutter warned them that officers were on their way. Two years earlier, they were fined a few hundred euros in Poland for lighting fireworks.
YouTuber Felix015_ (21,000 subscribers) says in a video that officers found 31 kilos of illegal fireworks at his home years ago. He was recently given 140 hours of community service for this. Ruben Koet also recently died convicted. The court found that he possessed and lit illegal fireworks in 2018, and that he encouraged others to order illegal fireworks by sharing discount promotions. His YouTube channel was taken offline and Koet received 180 hours of community service and a suspended prison sentence of four months, with a probationary period of three years. Since then, he says he no longer sets off fireworks for the camera, but only films how others do it. He warns viewers: “Be careful, you are filming your own crime.”
In one recent video Sven and Koen bake huge cakes, which according to the duo are of Dutch make. This gives the impression that the images were recorded in the Netherlands. But that cannot be determined with certainty: it is dark, and the grass that comes into view could just as well be elsewhere.
The question arises whether the police can take action against this. According to a police spokesperson, it must first be demonstrated that the fireworks were actually lit in the Netherlands and that this was prohibited at the time. “In addition, police capacity is scarce. This means that we do not chase every video, but intervene in a targeted manner, for example by taking videos offline or disrupting the trade in heavy explosives.”
In the meantime, the stream of fireworks videos on YouTube continues. In a new video, Ruben Koet films how people let off flares from a homemade launch rack late at night in a residential area. One of the men throws a Cobra 6 into the street, which rolls under a parked car. A huge bang and fire follows. The men laugh.
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