This wasn’t a cause for celebration.

Massachusetts firefighters were left scrambling this weekend when an inadvertent fireworks display erupted over a massive, propane-fueled blaze that destroyed two suburban homes and damaged a third.

Crews in Spencer, Mass., were already battling arctic 20-degree temperatures, dangerously icy conditions and a brutal inferno that exploded on East Avenue at about 4 p.m. on Sunday, CBS News said.

But the mammoth blaze — which was fed by propane tanks stored in the basement of one of the homes destroyed — wasn’t the only problem.

At one point, the flames reached an assortment of fireworks stored in the home — sending a grandiose spectacle leaping in all directions across the skies of the tiny town about a half-hour west of Worcester.

Video taken by a neighbor and published by CBS showed the fireworks streaming skyward, then bursting as shocked onlookers yelled in surprise.

“The main house, we didn’t even do anything with initially,” Spencer Fire Chief Robert Parsons told WCVB in Massachusetts. “It was well-involved when we pulled up.”

The home was empty when the fire started, officials said.

“Very quickly, this home had collapsed upon itself,” Parsons said. “This was an old home. It had a fire here about 30 years ago, so there was an old section and a new section to the home. We believe it started in the old section.”

Later on, the local fire department said in a Facebook post that “two of our families from town lost everything tonight and a third had damage to their home.”

“It’s devastating before Christmas,” said Justin Peck, who lived in the second home. “It just feels like everything’s falling apart.”

Two firefighters even fell through the ice of a nearby pond as they tried to pull water from its depths, since there are no fire hydrants in the area, officials said.

Despite the catastrophic property damage, no one was hurt by the flames, the icy conditions or the impromptu Independence Day display.

Local authorities and the state fire marshal are still trying to nail down what caused the blaze.

This column is from Trendlines, my business newsletter that covers the forces shaping the economy in Boston and beyond. If you’d like to receive it via email on Mondays and Thursdays, sign up here.

When it comes to producing new jobs, Massachusetts is putt-putt-putting along in the slow lane. We’re doing 40 miles per hour on the Pike with the hazards flashing as other states blow past.

The state’s job market is decelerating, underscoring a concern shared by many in the business community that myriad factors are eroding the state’s competitive edge. It’s not just the new millionaires tax — though there’s plenty of griping about that — but also issues that dishearten low- and middle-income residents: sky-high housing costs, unaffordable child care, and long commutes, to name a few.

The news: Massachusetts employers expanded payrolls by 27,100 jobs, an uptick of 0.7 percent, from November 2023 to November 2024, according to US Department of Labor data released on Friday. The total includes a paltry 800 jobs added last month, but at least that broke a four-month string of losses.

• In New England, only Connecticut saw a slower hiring rate (0.6 percent) over the past 12 months. In New Hampshire, jobs increased by 2.1 percent, while Rhode Island posted a 1.7 percent gain.
• Hiring rates in states that are considered key competitors outpaced Massachusetts. New York, North Carolina, and Florida were each up 1.7 percent, while Texas was up 2 percent.

A telling stat: Our state has roughly the same number of jobs as it did in February 2020, just before the pandemic hit. Nationally, payrolls have risen 4.6 percent.

Why it matters: Massachusetts, a graying state with high business costs and a modestly growing population, has trailed the nation’s job creation rate for much of this century.

The labor market is cooling across the country. But the expansion of remote work since the pandemic, an ever-rising cost of living, and the widening appeal of the Sun Belt states threaten to put Massachusetts even farther behind.

Meanwhile, unemployment is rising, hitting 4 percent in Massachusetts last month, the highest in three years. Massachusetts is just 0.1 percentage point below the national rate, down from a gap of 1 percentage point in May.

The big picture: The state’s economy is solid, but cracks in the foundation are becoming more visible.

• Hiring in the past year was narrowly concentrated, with two-thirds of new jobs coming from health care and more than a quarter from government.
• The leisure and hospitality sector added 5,700 jobs. But gains in hotels and restaurants were muted by the disappearance of 4,000 jobs (4.6 percent) in arts, entertainment, and recreation.
• The information sector — which includes software and Web developers, telecom engineers, and cybersecurity specialists — shed 4,100 jobs, or 4.3 percent of its total.
• Education lost 1,600 jobs, a small hit (less than 1 percent) that nonetheless doesn’t bode well for an important sector that includes beleaguered private colleges and universities.

What’s ahead: The new year may prove pivotal for the economy.

President-elect Donald Trump is seeking to pump up growth with tax cuts and deregulation.

But the Federal Reserve is treading carefully with additional interest rate cuts, worried that Trump’s agenda, which also includes steep tariffs and sharp restrictions on immigration, might fan inflation.

Whether the job market stabilizes or continues to deteriorate hinges in part on how adeptly the Fed can push inflation lower without throttling the economy.

Final thought: In Massachusetts, the hiring slowdown has coincided with a spike in the number of people entering the labor force, largely due to international immigration, both legal and illegal.

Some 73,000 residents landed work in the past year, the Labor Department data show. But the ranks of the unemployed rose by more than 29,000 to more than 153,000 — a combination of workers who were laid off, quit, or are new job-seekers.

There’s not much Governor Maura Healey and the Legislature can do about inflation and interest rates. But they can hit the gas when it comes to making Massachusetts a more attractive place to create jobs.

Larry Edelman can be reached at larry.edelman@globe.com.