Fireworks light up the skies across the US as Americans endure searing heat to celebrate July Fourth

Millions of people in the U.S. celebrated and suffered under heat warnings Thursday as they flocked to beaches and traveled in droves to toast their nation’s birth with July Fourth parades, cookouts and the always anticipated fiery splashes of color in the evening sky.

In Washington, neon bursts of light illuminated the night above the National Mall. The Boston Pops performed a musical fireworks spectacular at that city’s Hatch Memorial Shell. And at parades all across the country, from Brattleboro, Vermont, to Waco, Texas, to Alameda, California, revelers dressed up in red, white and blue and waved the Stars and Stripes in commemoration of Independence Day.

Travel records were projected to fall with people jamming airports and crowding highways to reach Fourth of July celebrations that will stretch into a long weekend for many.

On the East Coast, some would-be beachgoers in Connecticut were turned away as parking at state parks filled to capacity, including a 2-mile (3 kilometer) stretch at Hammonasset Beach State Park, the state's largest shoreline beach.

Across the West, meanwhile, residents dealt with stifling heat as the National Weather Service warned of a “significant and extremely dangerous” heat wave across much of the region. Some spots in the desert Southwest were expecting temperatures topping 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius), and hot, muggy conditions also permeated the Deep South and Middle Atlantic.

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