On Saturday, the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that all seven individuals previously listed as missing were found dead amid the wreckage of a fireworks facility operated by Devastating Pyrotechnics, LLC in the rural agricultural community of Esparto, Yolo County, California.

The July 1 blast killed the seven workers—many of them young and some reportedly on their first day at the job—and injured two more, while igniting a wildfire that scorched 80 acres, destroyed homes and vehicles, and left thousands without power. The explosion has stunned the local community and drawn international attention.

This preventable catastrophe is not an isolated “accident” or aberration, as public officials have sought to claim. The Esparto explosion reveals, once again, the catastrophic consequences of deregulation, cronyism and the hollowing out of safety standards across the United States and internationally.

Among the deceased were Jesus Ramos (18), Jhony Ramos (22), Junior Melendez (28), and Carlos Rodriguez (41). The tragic detail that Jesus Ramos was reportedly on his first day of work at the facility underscores the grotesque lack of training and preparation given to workers tasked with handling highly explosive materials. The presence of young, inexperienced laborers in an unpermitted and unsafe fireworks facility speaks to a systemic indifference to life and limb.

Relatives of Jesus Ramos, Jhony Ramos and other victims gathered at the roadblock on County Road 86A Saturday afternoon and held up signs calling for justice for their loved ones and more information from officials.

“We’re here because we need some answers,” Jhony Ramos Sr., the father of the two Ramos brothers told the KCRA news outlet. “They (were) always together, you know, like twins.” Jesus recently told his father he would be a grandfather for the first time. “We need an answer,” Ramos Sr. told KCRA. “That’s all we need.”

“He was the light of our lives,” Joel Melendez’s mother, Lupe, told the local news outlet. Her son, who the family called “Jr,” and his wife were expecting their second child. “He was everything to me. We’re just devastated. I don’t even know how to move on from this or continue my life. I feel like I’m dead already. I can’t understand this.”

“I just want to know what happened to my son. I want answers,” she told KCRA reporters.

The blast leveled multiple buildings on the property and ignited the “Oakdale Fire,” which prompted evacuations in Esparto and Madison. More than 2,200 customers of Pacific Gas and Electric were left without power, while dozens of homes and vehicles were caught in the blaze.

Devastating Pyrotechnics was a crucial vendor for numerous municipal Fourth of July celebrations across the region, including events in San Jose, St. Helena, Chico, and Lodi. Many of these festivities were subsequently canceled due to the destruction of fireworks inventory in the explosion.

In a 2023 proposal to the city of Rio Vista, the company stated it employed three full-time staff and dozens of licensed pyrotechnicists, with apprentice technicians gaining experience by working alongside seasoned professionals.

And yet, despite the devastating toll, state and local officials have scrambled to present the explosion as a rare and anomalous event. “This type of incident is very rare,” Cal Fire said in a statement. But such assurances are untrue.

As the World Socialist Web Site has documented repeatedly, from near-fatal injuries after a blast at an Orlando, Florida fireworks warehouse to similar explosions in Thailand, Mexico, the Netherlands and India, these types of catastrophes are the inevitable outcome of a global capitalist economy predicated on the ruthless exploitation of labor, deregulation, and corruption.

Preliminary investigations have revealed that Devastating Pyrotechnics was operating its Esparto facility without the required local zoning or business permits. The land was designated for agricultural use—not for the commercial storage of explosive materials. Nevertheless, the company was allowed to operate in plain sight, despite these glaring violations of zoning laws.

The property where the warehouse stood is owned by Sam Machado, a lieutenant in the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office. While Machado appears not to be involved in the ongoing investigation, his ownership of the non-compliant property raises significant questions about conflicts of interest regarding investigations, enforcement of zoning laws, and public perception of impartiality.

Another individual tied to the operation, Craig Cutright, is not only an Esparto volunteer firefighter, but also held a fireworks business license at the address.

Cutright has been identified as an employee of Devastating Pyrotechnics and the owner of BlackStar Fireworks—another fireworks company which also stored fireworks at the same Esparto address. The Esparto Fire Protection District Chief has confirmed that Cutright remains an active volunteer firefighter.

These facts raise urgent questions about conflicts of interest and the effective nullification of oversight by local authorities that go well beyond individual responsibilities.

Were enforcement agencies turning a blind eye to violations? Were inspections conducted at all? This overlap between regulatory roles and private business interests exposes “regulatory capture,” a phenomenon in which the state is the handmaiden of private capital in the context of systemic complicity between local government, law enforcement and private business.

Devastating Pyrotechnics, which brands itself as one of the largest fireworks importers in the Western United States and a specialist in large-scale professional displays, had promoted its “excellent relationship” with fire authorities and claimed to uphold rigorous safety standards. But its operations were evidently far from compliant.

The Yolo County Planning Commission confirmed that the site lacked a business license and was not zoned for hazardous materials. Moreover, early evidence suggests that explosives were stored in areas not federally approved for such materials, further indicating severe safety violations.

Legal professionals have already drawn attention to the broader implications of the Esparto disaster. Attorneys Ryan Will and Mark Peacock have both pointed to a “broader failure of oversight at the local and state level,” citing “unregulated fireworks storage, illegal use, and a lack of meaningful enforcement.” They have urgently called for stronger national standards and enforcement mechanisms.

Within the industry itself, the American Pyrotechnics Association (APA) promotes “voluntary safety and compliance standards.” Devastating Pyrotechnics, notably, was not a member of the APA. While membership is not mandatory, the absence of affiliation underscores a wider industry problem: many operators remain outside any meaningful safety framework, in part because it is more profitable to do so. Safety, in this context, is seen as an obstacle to profit maximization.

The situation in Esparto is emblematic of the broader decay of public regulatory structures under capitalism. The drive to cut costs, eliminate “red tape,” and maximize returns has rendered toothless agencies that were nominally tasked with safeguarding public health and safety. The result is a social environment in which workers are regularly maimed or killed in factories, construction sites, warehouses, and—as in this case—fireworks facilities, with little to no accountability for the perpetrators.

These conditions will only worsen as Trump guts the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Chemical Safety Board and other regulatory agencies, and eliminates all restrictions on capitalist exploitation.

Arguments advanced that the absence of union representation contributed to the fatal outcome at Devastating Pyrotechnics are refuted by a mountain of evidence, including the recent death of Detroit area Stellantis worker Ronald Adams Sr., who perished in an industrial incident at a unionized facility.

The World Socialist Web Site has repeatedly exposed the extent to which the trade union apparatus in the United States—whether it be the United Auto Workers, the Teamsters, or the United Food and Commercial Workers—has become integrated into corporate management. Far from defending workers’ interests, the union apparatus functions to suppress opposition, enforce sellout contracts, and isolate struggles. The absence of a union at Devastating Pyrotechnics is not the problem. The real issue is the absence of worker control over the conditions of their labor and safety.

The Esparto disaster underscores the urgent need for workers to take safety and workplace conditions into their own hands by forming independent rank-and-file committees, free from corporate influence and the corrupt trade union apparatus. These committees must assert democratic control over all aspects of production, including safety protocols, to prevent future tragedies.

Reliance on government agencies, corporate media, or union leadership is futile under a capitalist system that prioritizes profit over human life. Only through collective organization and international solidarity can workers fight for real accountability, enforce genuine safety standards, and ultimately transform society in the interests of the working class.

It is for these reasons that the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) has launched an independent investigation into the death of Ronald Adams Sr., led by rank-and-file workers, as part of a broader effort to expose the systemic conditions that lead to such tragedies.

The explosion in Esparto and Adams’ death are not isolated incidents, but rather manifestations of the same underlying reality: a capitalist system that subordinates human life to profit. Only by uncovering the truth through independent, worker-led inquiry can accountability be achieved—and the foundation laid for a movement capable of fighting for real safety, dignity, and social transformation.