A recent city council-mandated process reviewed Grass Valley, CA (GV) ordinances related to fireworks sales. Citizen comments are running 10:1 in favor of a ban in fireworks sales, as a tactic to reduce wildfire risk (such as the Angora fire, which devastated So Lake Tahoe in June 2007). Local service clubs and youth organizations rake in revenue from fireworks sales, and are resisting any change in current fireworks ordinances.
For information on upcoming GV city council meetings, meetings, how to make your voice heard, see this forum, as well as: http://fireworksanity.blogspot.com/
As an advocate of reducing risk of wildfire from fireworks for over ten years, I have recently participated in workshops, ably conducted by GV Fire Chief Jim Marquis to obtain public opinion on the effect of reducing via tighter control of fireworks sale and detonation. My recommendations follow:
July 4: GV should continue to allow detonation of all types of fireworks in GV by private citizens, for a few hours in certain safe GV locations only. This is designed to reduce the likelihood that people will detonate fireworks in unsafe, wildfire-prone areas outside GV city limits. But GV should reduce fireworks sales in GV over the next few years, down to no sales in 2010.
Dec 31: Nevada County should allow detonation of all types of fireworks in Nevada County by private citizens anywhere in the unincorporated county. However, this is a matter for county and state government to permit.
Local service clubs and youth organizations have shown resistance to any change in current fireworks ordinances. They are slow to embrace replacement of the revenue they now derive from fireworks sales. Despite many suggestions of alternate products and services that can be sold without elevating community risk from wildfire, leaders of these organizations advocate "no change" instead of evolving to increase public safety. They will advocate their views at upcoming Grass Valley City Council meetings, complete with fresh-faced 4H youth, high school band members, etc in uniforms purchased with fireworks profits at upcoming Grass Valley City Council meetings. PR firms for fireworks distributors will also make appeals claiming that statistical risk of wildfire from fireworks is low, that safe and sane fireworks pose no risk, etc. Such advocacy will have significant appeal. However, restrictions on fireworks sales to enhance public safety do not equate to lack of goodwill for the social mission of these organizations.
Letters to the editor in local media, and citizens participating in recent GV workshops continue to run 10:1 in favor of a ban on sales. The public perceives fireworks to be an optional activity that poses significant risk to lives and property. The public wants GV to show some responsibility toward protection of non-city property owners. The public believes forests, property, livestock, and lives will continue to suffer needless risk from fireworks detonated outside Grass Valley until fireworks sales near July 4 are prohibited.
My conversations with Fire Chiefs, OES personnel, Fire Marshals, Forest Service fire officers have revealed wide support for allowing fireworks sales and detonation only during times of the year when wildfire risk is minimal, such as for celebration of the New Year. Changes to state law have been proposed that would enable local government to allow fireworks sales in December, adoption of such laws will take more time.
Here is a detailed look at the issues, positions, and arguments related to reducing risk and damage from fireworks:
Hundreds of thousands of tax $ are being spent in Nevada County on fuels reduction. Yet, very little is being done to reduce wildfire risk from fireworks insanity - something that would cost almost *no* tax dollars!
Plenty of people do *not* follow the county law prohibiting lighting of fireworks in the unincorporated county. So claiming that what is sold in GV stays in GV is to ignore the problem. People buy fireworks in GV, take them outside the city limits, and light them off in hazardous areas. Judging from evidence left laying on the ground, and from personal observation of fireworks in action all summer, many agree that fireworks are used in dry brush, forests, and rural areas. I have confronted people in my neighborhood actually firing off roman candles - propelling burning phosphor balls into the brush from their driveway on more than one July 4. In summer, I hear strings of many firecrackers exploding in my neighborhood – rated one of “Severe fire danger” by CalFire. As a bicycle rider, I see fireworks casings on rural roads in summer, and on rural trails in the woods. These are fresh casings, not old casings that have been wet, crushed, or covered by leaf debris! The easy purchase of fireworks in Grass Valley facilitates this illegal and anti-social activity.
Some reduction in fireworks-induced wildfire risk in better than none. Banning sales in GV may not completely prevent people from lighting GV-purchased fireworks outside GV. But some improvement is better than none. Some portion of fireworks (aerial types) lit in rural areas are illegal-in-CA fireworks - not legally sold here. Nevertheless, some reduction of risk will be achieved by banning sales in GV.
"Safe and Sane" is anything but! Virtually all fireworks sold in the US are made in China, where manufacturing is renowned for shoddy quality control. Recent news reports, and FDA investigations confirm that Americans cannot trust Chinese-made toys to be free of lead paint, Chinese-made animal feed to be free of pet-killing toxics, or Chinese-made prepared food containers to be free of pesticides, or Chinese blood thinning drug components to be free of allergens. Why should we trust our fire safety and risk of personal injury to careless foreign workers? Smoky the Bear's slogan is "It only takes a spark". Does anyone really believe that Chinese-made fireworks provide no sparks? Or those detonating fireworks create no sparks with their matches, lighters, and cigarettes?
Ban sale of fireworks in Grass Valley in all months except Decembers in which brush and forest moisture content is above some sensible amount as reported by CalFire from local measurements. The GV City Council will be seen as remaining supportive of service club fundraising, because it allows sales of fireworks for New Years celebrations. While this statute would not address risk of personal injury, it will reduce risk to buildings, land, and forests, and hence would be some improvement from present practice. Service clubs can buy fireworks at lower "off-peak" prices for fireworks in December, resulting in more profit margin from their sale.
Service clubs have no right to endanger the lives and property of others merely to fund their programs. There is no need to compromise with service club habits regarding fireworks. But we can help service clubs evolve by continuing to advocate they shift to making sales of products and services that do not facilitate fireworks insanity. The appeal of cute kids trotted up on front of public meetings notwithstanding, fireworks equate to risk of fire in the minds of the public (local letters-to-editor run 10:1 in favor of banning fireworks sales).
Service club community benefit is dwarfed by the cost of structure and wild fires. The small economic boost to service clubs from fireworks sales is dwarfed by the cost of even a single structure lost to fire. And it is dwarfed by the cost to taxpayers of having firefighters respond to even a small wildfire. Fireworks equate to risk of fire in the minds of the public (local letters-to-editor run 10:1 in favor of banning fireworks sales).
Service clubs are too small to reduce fuels significantly. The appeal of cute kids trotted up in the city council chambers is heartwarming. Their offer of volunteer brush clearing to reduce risk of wildfires is an undersized compensation. With their small budgets, and modest membership size, they have no hope of making a significant dent in fuels reduction. This is nothing but a “feel good”, yet ineffective offer.
Service clubs can adapt to changing market conditions by revising the products they sell to raise money. 'One product' markets are an archaic fantasy. Service clubs can use product diversification to teach kids real-world business skills, and retain more of the revenue in the community. Teaching kids to profit by adding risk of injury and property loss to locals (however willing those locals are to buy fireworks) is the wrong lesson. At the very best, it is akin to hiding one's head in the sand. More realistically, it is profiting from the misery of victims. Would these same service clubs be proud to profit from sales of other products that risk harming people? Red-white-and-blue cigarettes? Chewing tobacco? Cigars? Slingshots? Pellet guns?
Fireworks vendors are actually siphon local money out of the county. Fireworks vendors from out-of-town hired by local service clubs retain a hefty cut of sales, and don’t spend it here.
When service clubs sell sane non-burning products in July and fireworks in December, they will generate even more revenue than when they supported fireworks insanity.
Service clubs formerly dependent on fireworks sales may have to revise their fundraising methods. Diversifying their income sources will be beneficial in the long run. It will also teach their members more about modern business practices. Here are some options for the service clubs to make just as much July revenue from sane celebration products as from fireworks insanity. They can sell products such as:
Service club profit margin will be higher from sales of items other than fireworks. Service clubs don't sell fireworks directly - they pay carpetbagger companies from outside Nevada County huge commissions. These carpetbaggers employ outsiders, not just local people. If service clubs want to serve the local community, why not pay local people to sell products with higher profit margins?
This proposal is not a call to end public displays of fireworks by professionals at any time of year. So this would not affect the July 4 fireworks show staged at the Nevada County Fairgrounds.
This proposal is not a call to end private displays of fireworks by private citizens within the GV city limits. The citizens of Nevada County (rural, and within-city-limits) would rather, if fireworks must be lit, that they are lit in areas where wildfire ignition potential is low, and fire and medical assistance is standing by. The existing locations and permitted time interval within GV are adequate. This is designed to reduce the likelihood that people will detonate fireworks in unsafe, wildfire-prone areas outside GV city limits.
Law enforcement is overwhelmed with complaints about fireworks on July 4, and cannot possibly respond. Law Enforcement has little hope of finding the perpetrators of illegal fireworks ignition, or wildfire perpetrators. Thus more emphasis has to be placed on prevention. On more than one July 4, in response to direct observations of illegal fireworks use in high fire danger areas, my neighbors have requested law enforcement and fire department come to deal with fireworks violators. Officers were unable to respond in a timely manner; some years, no enforcement responded to the scene at all, and some years dispatchers admitted they could not possibly do so. This is understandable, because despite their best efforts, agencies are so deluged with calls, that they cannot possibly sent personnel to each scene. Even if agencies could somehow swarm the scene of a reported violation, they would be unlikely to get there soon enough to put out a brush fire. Due to the speed with which wildfire spreads in July's dry vegetation, it is insufficient to react to fireworks-ignited fires violations. We simply must do more to prevent the occurrence of fireworks-caused fires.
Statements by fire officials, OES website, etc, that "there is no proof that fireworks has caused wildfire" are not credible. This claim defies common sense, and my personal observations. Statistics can obsure common sense. Few citizens really believe the latest OES statistics that there were *no* wildfires caused by fireworks in northern California in 2007. Sure, one can play with figures from OES and other organizations, and claim that tobacco smoking and faulty residential systems are attributed as the cause of more fires than fireworks. But the key difference is that fireworks is as *optional* activity (unlike citizen's dependence on electrical appliances), and not one that is chemically addicting (as is tobacco). There is no need to even argue about the quantity of fires for which there was "no cause determined" or were attributed to "human cause." Claims that there "is no problem from fireworks" are signs of a large credibility problem, such claims are preposterous. Fireworks equate to risk of fire in the minds of the public (local letters-to-editor run 10:1 in favor of banning fireworks sales).
Claims by fireworks wholesale trade group publicists that "other communities that banned fireworks did not see reductions in fireworks-caused damage" are not applicable here. If the OES website is right, and there were *no* wildfires caused by fireworks, how could the fireworks marketers claim to have reduced them? Second, those cities listed as having experimented with bans on sales of fireworks are all on major freeways, where citizens could easily drive to the next town to buy fireworks. This is much less true of Grass Valley, which is a long drive from other cities which may continue to sell fireworks.
Fireworks scare people and animals, including livestock and pets. Many citizens in the recent GV workshops reported run-away pets as a result of fireworks noise. The newspaper classifieds for lost pets always increases right after July 4.
Wean service clubs of fireworks revenue:
For information on upcoming GV city council meetings, meetings, how to make your voice heard, see this forum, as well as: http://fireworksanity.blogspot.com/
Short term action: (by end April 2008): announce impending regulations to reduce volume of legal fireworks sales in Grass Valley, and encourage organizations holding sales of fireworks to find alternate sources of revenue, including sales of non-igniting products. Lobby CA state legislature to amend state law to allow municipalities to individually permit fireworks sales and displays on certain days in December, when vegetation is sufficiently moist, so as to make chance of wildfire minimal. Announce that GV will allow public lighting of *all* fireworks (during the same hours, and in the same locations as permitted in 2007), on July 4 only. This means that owners of non "safe and sane" fireworks will be allowed to light them off in GV, and not harassed by enforcement personnel.
Medium term action (by end August 2009): reduce volume of legal fireworks sales in Grass Valley by reducing the number of permits available for sales booths in July to 50% of 2007 levels. Continue to allow public lighting of *all* fireworks (during the same hours, and in the same locations as permitted in 2007), on July 4 only. Continue to allow professionally managed displays of fireworks on July 4, such as at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. Lobby CA state legislature to amend state law to allow municipalities to individually permit fireworks sales and displays on certain days in December, when vegetation is sufficiently moist, so as to make chance of wildfire minimal.
Medium term action (by end August 2010): reduce volume of legal fireworks sales in Grass Valley by reducing the number of permits available for sales booths in July to 25% of 2007 levels. Continue to allow public lighting of *all* fireworks (during the same hours, and in the same locations as permitted in 2007), on July 4 only. Continue to allow professionally managed displays of fireworks on July 4, such as at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. Lobby CA state legislature to amend state law to allow municipalities to individually permit fireworks sales and displays on certain days in December, when vegetation is sufficiently moist, so as to make chance of wildfire minimal.
Long term solution (by end March 2011): disallow legal fireworks sales in July in Grass Valley entirely. Allow legal fireworks sales in December only in Grass Valley. Allow public lighting of *all* fireworks (during the same hours, and in the same locations as permitted in 2007), on July 4 and Dec 31 only. Continue to allow professionally managed displays of fireworks on July 4, such as at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. A change in existing state law could allow for the option for local governments to permit fireworks sales during a brief period: celebration of the New Year: December 26 through January 1. Such changes were proposed in 2005: AB 923 and AB 1295. They imposed small increases in government costs. They allowed for, but did not mandate local government to change local law. They apparently died in committee, probably due to fiscal matters that were included (unnecessarily, in my opinion).
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