GILROY
– While the official fireworks lasted little more than 10
minutes, the unofficial ones were exploding all weekend long.
Unlike last Independence Day, however, these pyrotechnics
sparked no major fires.
GILROY – While the official fireworks lasted little more than 10 minutes, the unofficial ones were exploding all weekend long.
Unlike last Independence Day, however, these pyrotechnics sparked no major fires.
From Sunday afternoon until after 11 p.m., outdoor parties filled most Gilroy neighborhoods with people lining the streets, eating, drinking and lighting fireworks.
Many of the pyrotechnics were the kind the state of California deems “safe and sane” – sparklers and sparking cans that non-profit groups sold at booths all over town.
But screaming rockets and ear-splitting booms were clear signs that many of the fireworks around town were of a different type.
Fireworks that travel into the air, move on the ground or explode – such as bottle rockets, Roman candles, cherry bombs and M-80s – are illegal in California. Gilroy is the only city in Santa Clara County that allows fireworks of any kind, even the “safe and sane” variety.
As dusk settled, thousands of people gathered near Gilroy High School for the only city-sanctioned aerial pyrotechnic display, which ran from about 9:35 to 9:45 p.m. and received mixed reviews.
“That was the best Gilroy’s ever had,” said Tarra Garcia, who has lived in Gilroy since 1967. “It was great … but it was short.”
“Other years were better,” Gavilan College student Yolizma Haro said.
While people waited for the show to begin, illegal skyrockets burst all around while combined teams of police officers and firefighters tried to catch those who were launching them.
They focused on aerial rockets, which tend to start the most fires, according to Gilroy Fire Department Division Chief Phil King.
“There were quite a few aerials out there,” King said. “Early on in the evening, it appeared just like it did last year or maybe even more.”
After about an hour of police and fire enforcement, however, the airborne fireworks decreased significantly, he said.
The biggest fire of the weekend happened Saturday night at about 9:20 p.m., when a rocket burned the wood-shingle roof of a two-story apartment building at 8186 Kelton Drive.
“We caught it before it was able to get into the attic, so it was a minor fire,” King said. “Had it gotten into the attic, which it was starting to do, it would have … likely displaced people.”
On Sunday the Fourth, illegal fireworks were the source of one blaze in a dumpster and another on a roof that charred several wooden shingles, the GFD reported.
Last Independence Day, illegal fireworks sparked nine blazes that did an estimated $425,000 worth of damage in a seven-hour span. During one videotaped house fire, people launched fireworks over the heads of firefighters trying to extinguish the flames, according to city Fire Marshall Jackie Bretschneider.
That was not something city officials wanted to repeat, so prior to the Fourth, Bretschneider led an education campaign about the dangers of illegal fireworks. There was little evidence from police and fire officials that this reduced the number of illegals out there. Police Sgt. Kurt Svardal said many of the people he spoke with seemed to know little about fireworks legality.
Extra police officers and firefighters on the holiday did helped reduce the danger, King said; plus, he added, the city also was lucky to have some marine-layer moisture in the air that may have stopped some potential fires.
As of press time, police had not yet tallied the fireworks citations they issued, but the ticket total was not high despite thousands of firecrackers seized, according to Svardal. This was because bystanders generally denied owning the confiscated fireworks.
“If you didn’t actually catch somebody with them, you didn’t know who did it,” Svardal said.
At one point, a police officer reported over the radio that three men at the source of an illegal launching had all pointed at each other and then said they had run out of fireworks.
While the weekend was tiring for public safety officers, it wasn’t bad, according to Svardal.
“We did not run across any people that were completely unruly,” he said. “People were having a good time, and most of the crowd was very friendly. … It was nice to see some of the (streets) getting together, people out in the middle of their block and enjoying themselves.”
Minus the fireworks, Svardal described the weekend as “calm.”
“I think if you took fireworks away,” he said, “it would have been an average Sunday night.”
