In this paper, a new efficient method to solve the network reconfiguration with an objective of improving power loss minimization and voltage profile of the distribution system is presented. A new Meta-heuristics Fireworks Algorithm (FWA) is proposed to optimize the radial distribution network while satisfying the operating constraints. FWA is a recently developed swarm intelligence based optimization algorithm which is conceptualized using the fireworks explosion process of searching for a best location of sparks. Network reconfiguration is formulated as a complex combinatorial optimization problem. The radial nature of the system is secured by generating proper parent node-child node path of the network during power flow. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method, it is tested on a standard IEEE 33- and 119-bus system. The simulated results are compared with other methods available in the literature. It is observed that the performance of proposed method is better than the other methods in terms of quality of solutions. Different abnormal cases are also considered during reconfiguration of network to study the effectiveness of the proposed method and the results obtained are found to be encouraging. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.