You can't keep expired flares on the boat. As a kid my dad would never dispose of them on the commercial boat. He got a few warnings from the coasties. He always said he would start with the ones from 1984 and work from there. At some point he gave me about 25 years of expired flares. I was firing flares from the 80's in 2010 to light bonfires. I would say at least 90% worked. All stored in those orange boxes.