Fireworks manufacturing in India is generally carried out manually due to sensitive nature of the chemical mixtures to thermal, mechanical and electrical hazards. Despite extreme care accidents continue to record leading to fatalities and complete destruction of the facility. Since there are no piping and instrumentation diagrams, it becomes difficult to apply the conventional hazard assessment techniques like HAZOP, FTA, and FMEA. In this work, for the first time one of the well-known hazard identification procedures called "what-if analysis" was used to identify hazards in a typical firework manufacturing facility. Such methodical analysis helped to identify conditions that can lead to an accident situation. This paper discusses many necessary safety precautions to be followed in the manufacture of flash compositions. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.