WASHINGTON – On the eve of the nation’s noisiest holiday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission responded to growing fireworks injuries by quietly reopening the question of how it should police explosives for backyard entertainment.

Without a public meeting, the three commissioners voted unanimously by ballot late Friday to begin a study of whether to tighten their regulation of fireworks, commission spokesman Scott Wolfson announced Monday. Their notice seeking public comment will appear soon in the Federal Register.

The notice cited a disturbing increase in injuries and a decrease in compliance with safety regulations as reasons for the first major review of commission fireworks regulations since 1976.

“It’s worth pursing an effort to see how we can once again drive down injuries,” Wolfson said.

The commission’s only Democrat, Thomas Moore, criticized the panel for acting by private ballot. “The commission’s deliberations are supposed to be done in public,” Moore said. “We do not serve the public well when we take the first step in a possible rule-making in this manner.”

The commission’s just-released study of fireworks injuries in 2005 estimated 10,800 people required emergency room treatment. That figure has risen steadily since an estimated 8,000 required treatment in 2002.

The figures show a small but steady rise in firework injuries compared with the nation’s growing population: from 2.6 injuries per 100,000 people in 1996 to 3.6 per 100,000 in 2005 – a decade in which the use of fireworks soared.

The commission’s sampling of imported fireworks found a sharp drop last year in compliance with its safety regulations. From 2002 through 2004, 71 percent to 73 percent of imported fireworks complied with federal regulations, but in 2005 that figure plunged to 59 percent.

Most fireworks are imported from China.

The panel did not promise to issue new rules but said it would consider requiring manufacturers to test their products and certify they comply with safety requirements; adding new requirements that fireworks must meet; continuing a largely voluntary safety program; or banning some devices case-by-case.

The commission’s mandatory regulations are far less extensive than voluntary ones issued by the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory. For instance, the AFSL sets maximum powder limits to regulate the power of explosives intended for consumers. The federal commission has no such limits.

The largest safety problem is product misuse rather than product failures, said Julie Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association, an industry trade group.

“It’s teenagers having bottle rocket wars, parents giving sparklers to 2-year-olds and people having too much to drink and putting firecrackers up their nose,” Heckman said.