Marilyn Owens and her husband just moved back into their house after fireworks sent them running from their home. It's a night that they'll never forget.

Owens' neighbors wanted to start the new year off with a bang. So they set off fireworks in celebration of 2008.

“We thought it would be over within a little while but it just kept going on,” she said.

Then the unexpected happened.

“Suddenly I heard a popping sound from one of the bedroom windows.”

The Owenses’ home was on fire.

“They looked outside and saw some fire was burning on the outside of the house,” said Battlefield District Deputy Chief Thom Burton, in an interview early Jan. 1. “They were able to get out. Nobody was hurt.”

Owens says fireworks landed on some dry leaves on the side of her house.

“It was so windy that the fire just went right up the side of the house,” she said. “They said it was one of those freak accidents.”

That freak cost Marilyn her home for six months. She and her husband were finally able to move back in just this week, just in time for fireworks season.

“Now that fireworks are on sale, they start at about 10 o'clock . . They’re all around us; we can hear them.”

And all around Owens’ yard, she finds scraps of fireworks.

“It's a rocket, it's a bottle rocket,” she said, examining a scrap of debris. “It's a little too close for me.”

Owens wants everyone to use caution and common sense this Independence Day. At R & R Fireworks stand, they pass out safety tips reminding people not to light fireworks near homes on dry grass or anything flammable to prevent what happened to Owens from happening to others.

“They were carelessly shooting them off is what we think,” she said. “I don't want anybody else to go through that.”

Owens says she plans to eventually ask Greene County commissioners to ban setting off fireworks in the county. She says, if we can't burn trash, we should be able to shoot fireworks.