Between fighting four small fires, Gilroy fire and police crews
collect more than 7,300 illegal fireworks
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – Independence Day revelers in the northwest part of the city kept police and firefighters hopping Monday night, shooting illegal fireworks into the air for hours and contributing to a record confiscation of the devices.
Between collecting illegal fireworks, the Gilroy Fire Department fought four small fires, but none of them damaged any structures, Division Chief Ed Bozzo said Tuesday.
One, which occurred at Las Animas Elementary School about 7pm, is still under investigation. Firefighters quickly extinguished a trash bin that was burning near the exterior wall of a classroom at the 8450 Wren Ave. school.
“They’re still looking at it because they found … it was almost an identical scenario of Glen View (school): It was right up against the building front,” Bozzo said. “There was very little trash in it, but they found three other bins over there that they’re looking at.”
All three of the other bins contained burned material, he said. An arson fire that destroyed several Glen View classrooms in March was ignited on a janitor’s cart outside the building before it spread to the classrooms themselves.
The other three Monday night fires occurred within a half-hour of the Las Animas fire, but all were quickly taken care of because the department’s vehicles were on patrol in the neighborhood.
“Actually, we had a two-hour span there that was pretty heavy all over the place,” Bozzo said.
A Dumpster at Gavilan College, 5055 Santa Teresa Blvd., ignited about 6:30pm, but the flames were mostly gone by the time firefighters arrived, Bozzo said. The Dumpster was located near the tennis courts at the campus, away from any structures.
Two other fires were called in about 7pm – one at Rod Kelley Elementary School and one in an open field at Kern and Tatum avenues, on the northern border of the city. The Rod Kelley fire, at 8755 Kern Ave., burned a container full of straw. The vegetation fire was contained to a small area of the field, Bozzo said.
“We were fortunate the weather was in our favor,” he said.
Besides the fires, GFD crews and police battled illegal fireworks throughout the night. They collected 7,349 illegal devices, about 2,000 more than last year. The majority were fireworks that fly into the air, such as bottle rockets or mortars. A couple problem areas were Carlyle Court and part of Hirasaki Avenue.
“We did confiscate some there, also off of Kelton (Drive), and the whole northwest quad was bad, as well as the whole city,” Bozzo said.
Residents of Carlyle Court repeatedly fired off illegal fireworks that could be seen over the tops of trees across town. Firefighters patrolling the area saw the violations, but had to call in Gilroy police before entering the neighborhood. Residents had parked two cars and placed a construction horse at the entrance to the court to block access, and with a large number of people gathered outside, firefighters did not approach on foot in the interest of safety. The area was nearly impossible to see into because it was so smoke-filled from fireworks.
Neighborhoods are required to obtain a block party permit from the city before closing public streets, and even then may not use cars to do so. Seven block parties were registered with the city for the Fourth of July, but Bozzo said he saw more than 30.
He laid out and tallied all the illegal fireworks confiscated Monday and prepared to box them up for the state fire marshal to collect and destroy later. He noted an increase in mortars, which fly into the air and explode much like the fireworks used in the city’s display. They fly higher and are bigger than bottle rockets, but both are associated with most roof fires that break out on July 4.
It was not known at press time if any illegal fireworks users were cited. The workload on police and firefighters and difficulty in pinpointing who exactly is using the illegal devices both hamper the departments’ ability to cite offenders, Bozzo said.
Gilroy residents called in many illegal fireworks over the weekend: Dispatchers received 166 fireworks-related calls Friday through Monday, with 100 of those calls coming Monday night.
