Idaho Mountain Express: Fireworks should be banned in Blaine County

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Fireworks should be banned in Blaine County

    The recent fire in Croy Canyon should be a strong enough argument to ban all fireworks in Blaine County with the exception of the municipal displays.
   We had the devastating Beaver Creek and Castle Rock fires started by lightning strikes, which was bad enough. Now another potentially devastating fire caused by fireworks, which had it not been for air support and hard-working ground crews could have wiped out Hailey. As it is, the bill came to $1 million to put this fire out.
   The so called “safe and sane” fireworks still start fires because you can’t count on people to use them wisely. Years ago, a neighbor of mine had their garage and a bedroom burned when someone set one of the whistling fireworks on its side and lit it. The firework shot underneath a garage door, the people were on vacation and the Fire Department showed up a few hours later when neighbors noticed the smoke.
   Whether they are the yard displays sold legally in our community or the illegal aerial types, they need to be banned. We are surrounded by wild land, dry grass and cottonwood forests, which don’t mix with pyrotechnics. Some neighbors behind me lit off four aerial fireworks in our cottonwood forest near the Land Trust preserve. I spoke to one of our Hailey firefighters, who told me they spent the evening and night of the Fourth driving around putting out fires. Hello people, time to wake up!
   Since the aerial fireworks are already illegal and people still set them off, our city officials as well as the county should impose a $1,000 fine for the use of fireworks in our county and include our BLM and National Forest lands within the county. That will get people’s attention.
   Folks, we have dodged the bullet so far with our previous wildfires. We lost one home and some outbuildings in the Beaver Creek Fire with no serious injuries to firefighters. Next time, we may not be so fortunate. No firefighters need to lose their lives putting out a fire started because somebody was being stupid.
Carmen Northen
Hailey

Editor’s note: Fireworks vendors in Blaine County are allowed to only sell designated “safe and sane” fireworks.

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