www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/contra-costa-county-july-fourth-fireworks-fires-18185319.php
Firefighters battle almost 60 fires in Bay Area county on July Fourth
these days
The fireworks in my neighborhood sound like bombs being detonated. They're nothing like the fireworks I remember as a kid. They're way louder than gunshots — they just explode. They're as professional-looking as the ones in actual fireworks shows, only super super close up.
They sort of make me sad because I think of people and animals who actually have to live in war zones. I can hear a bomb go off 200 feet away and just pet my dog and tell him it's fine. It would be horrible if all this were real.
Also I live in a low-income neighborhood, so it's weird to think of how people are obtaining these. Like are they driving to another state? Are they paying big bucks for Mexican imports? Where do you even go to buy these? You need a contact or something.
50 fires in one day. I feel incredibly lucky my street didn't go up in flames.
No kidding. I was on a hill where I could see a bunch of peoples' stuff popping off, and some people had impressive stuff but some of them were just a bang and a flash, or a whistle, bang and flash. It makes me think of war zones, too.
From a distance, one group looked like they switched to literal red emergency flares after they ran out of sparkly stuff. Just stupid.
In oakland, every year my thought process is the same: "damn, so much poverty racking this city and yet I see/hear literally millions of dollars worth of fireworks going off"
Does anyone know how much they actually cost? It's possible people are getting them very cheaply somehow. For example, I know tattoos cost a lot but I also know that people often get them free from friends/family. I really don't know how much people are paying for fireworks.
I'm not going to link to websites that sell them, but...
a 72 pack of 5" canister shells is $200, so $2.77/each for some of the medium sized aerial shells. (note, canister shells are a bit of a regulatory oddball, they're all 2" diameter, they come in different lengths of 3-7 inches, they're not the same as a 5 inch sphere shell, which would be a Class B professional firework, not a Class C civilian firework.)
flashing thunder roman candles are $159 for 144 10 shot units at $1.10/each, or a total of 1440 shots.
Little Nuke firecrackers are $149 for 60 24-shot units at $2.48 or a total of 1440 shots.
and the 50 shot Ammo Box's are $5.99 each plus shipping.
so, it depends on how much you want to blow up, but if you and three of your buddies each put in $250, you can turn a street into a warzone for awhile.
damn, that way cheaper than what i had growing up. is it just this cheap online, or are there firework stands that sell this cheap too? only places i ever went were firework emporiums on legal state boarders.
Those are all prices quotes from online sellers that will ship to your address, but (A) not in California, and (B) these prices wouldn't include ground shipping or the $50-$100 hazmat shipping charge.
I will note that the main website I was looking at really liked to sell by $150-$250 cases of product, so they were kinda aimed at a wholesale market. Imagine firework stores buying those and marking up 30-100%, but that's still significantly cheaper than buying out of "cousin armando's" trunk.
perhaps they are cheap. When I was buying them two decades ago, they were very expensive, even assuming no inflation. Not expensive for one or two, but when you have so many you're blowing through them during day while the sun is still up...
But it's not one person paying for all of those. It's huge groups of people.
I mean, they're too loud and dangerous but idk how expensive they are.
Back in 2010, a full shopping cart (Nevada) was around $1k.
Reno or Vegas would be the closest location to obtain it.
Oroville
Dublin/Livermore/Pleasanton you can purchase. Iirc, church groups petitioned the county to sell fireworks as an income source.
They are California compliant fireworks. Safe & Sane. Doesn’t shoot in the air. San Bruno also sells fireworks at the firework stand. The local police officer association, Was selling them also.
Only neighboring republican states sell fireworks that shoot in the air.
Yeah, the only things that are really legal in CA are sparklers, fountains, smoke effects, Piccolo Pete's and a few ground-effect spinners.
anything that explodes or fires objects in the air is banned, including roman candles, canister shells, firecrackers and larger M80's.
but like, I don't get why "saturn missile battery" would be banned, it's not much of a fire risk.
Ah, never bought any just see the stands starting in June and figured it was the source for my neighborhood in CCC. Do wonder how many of those stands sell the illegal ones under the counter, they always looked sketch to me to begin with.
I’d say they are only the legal ones.
The illegal ones are in other sketchy retail mom & pop stores that sell them under the table for 50% mark up in California. I’ve seen a few here & there. It’s rare though because of the undercover buy & bust stings.
I can not confirm that certain shops may have fireworks for sale in the back if you ask nice
not in Vegas, no. you would have to go to the next county over to Pahrump
My neighborhood in the east bay coastal flatlands was surrounded by about 6 fireworks shows. It sounded like a war zone, lasted until 1am
Only? Over 130 in Sac
Should just enforce the existing law on illegal fireworks. Main problem is that it is not being enforced. Selling them should be just as ILLEGAL as buying them.
Fucking assholes...and keeping me up til the wee hours of the morning on a work night. I used to love the 4th but now fuck fireworks with a spiky dildo
We should get the 4th AND the 5th off bc of the shitheels that keep their fireworks shows going past 1am on a school night
I think that would be totally justified 💀
they’ll just continue the fireworks on the 5th
Because we don't enforce our laws. In SF, the police department basically says "don't call the police about illegal fireworks". It's not hard to do roaming patrols to catch illegal fireworks, and punish the people (including spectators) with harsh punishment. But then it would be racist or something, so we just let people do it without fear.
Lmao punish spectators. Arrest everybody on the streets of SF!
Everybody in jail. Off ya go.
Walking down the street? Believe is or not, jail.
Police are on strike. Idk why this is so hard for people to acknowledge.
This person does a better job explaining it https://www.reddit.com/r/SanJose/comments/14a946v/san_jose_cops_can_remain_on_duty_while_suspended/jp25g8l/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3
Police screwing the firefighters by not enforcing. I’m sure with 10 minutes detective work they could shut down the importer.
Shut down the importer?
You mean the people who can bring it via Mexico, or China. Or the many other legal near by states where you can literally load up a van?
Goodluck :):)
“The importer” is just UPS, FedEx, etc. You buy em online from a legal state, have them ship to a friend in a legal state, friend ships to you a vacant nearby home in CA. No one is checking. Same with any state / city level ban of virtually anything (switchblades, trucker speed, high capacity magazines, abortion pills, you name it). It’s not like the post office checks your ID, they don’t run things through an X-ray like the airport.
Or you just make them yourself, it isn’t rocket science. Well, ok I guess technically it is rocket science, but you get what I mean.
User deleted comment
10mo
You can literally buy any gun part online. And I have. You can order a lower receiver online also but you have to ship it to your FFL and pick it up in person. I buy all my ARs online.
You watch too much TV if you think this is how the world works
Lol ya, just put a cop car on every street corner and watch them still do nothing
"I don't understand why OPD doesn't just do a massive dragnet through East Oakland on July 4th, and harshly punish anybody we find in the streets that could be involved with illegal firework activity. This should be easy."
User deleted comment
10mo
He's probably the same person complaining about car break ins and theft lol
Nobody said it would be easy. But doing nothing sure as shit is easy
It's not hard
Maybe you missed this part.
It's not hard to do roaming patrols
Maybe you missed this part. It definitely isn't hard to do patrols. They're not going to get everyone, but doing nothing at all is horseshit
I feel like your comment was a failed attempt at sarcasm but it's actually what should be done...
I don’t do sarcasm.
What I do is strip away all the extraneous stuff and hold a mirror up to the insane things people say on this sub, so that people’s prejudices and ignorance can be put on display.
Just like yours have been, just now.
Lol, whatever makes you feel better about yourself...
I feel like it's not very insane to ask police to do heavy patrols on a major holiday where people regularly mask gunshots with firework sounds and shoot off illegal explosive devices in residential areas, but feel free to live in whatever bizarre universe you'd like to live in...
No one enforces the laws on anything anymore, at least not in anyplace without money. Than if they are enforced theirs public outcry that manipulates the system. I don't even know what people want anymore.
It's everywhere, I am pretty sure, so please stop trying to explain everything through the prism of race
Where are all the idiots defending illegal fireworks that showed up to spew their bullshit. Fires are ONLY one of the reasons this shit needs to stop.
I'm a huge gun guy but this time of year always reminds of the the anti-gun / gun reform / background check talk, and i wonder why people can't associate fireworks / explosives with all of that talk. Where do they come from? Out of state. How do they get here? Smuggled in from other states. Wait aren't they illegal? People don't care. Are they dangerous? Yeah, but 'merica. Makes everyone using the 'safer' fireworks look bad, while it's the ones with the mortars and basically dynamite causing all of the problems. Granted we're talking about a certain time of the year this all goes down, it still goes down, with no issue or restraint and kind of with open arms, every year.
I'm not going to get into the argument of guns and murder and mass shootings, I'm just using it as an example of how rules don't matter to people that don't give a shit. And I'm using guns as the example because guns and explosives are cousins. one of the last times we went shooting, these fuckos started a fire and took off. Other people in the area did everything they can do put it out. I have the video of the aftermath as proof and when it was all said and done I can't imagine how big that shit would have gotten because it was out in Panoche Hills, no where near residential areas. They were irresponsible assholes, and everyone else had to deal with it.
Also side note for those who don't know, dirt can be a much better extinguisher than water, so there will be situations where a shovel or your feet will do way more good than trying to find a water source
You're not wrong at all, people just want to do what they want to do and make excuses for it. it's just way less excusable when it's being used for murder rather than entertainment is all.
Lol ya, I forgot you can go buy an assault rifle from a shack on the side of the road, no questions asked, just like fireworks. /s
The main parallel is how both guns and fireworks are regulated more by state than federal laws. And how states with more lax rules about what types you can buy and who can buy them create a source for criminally, inclined people to legally buy them, and then illegally resell them to other criminals in the more regulated states.
I think the US should have uniform nationwide laws, both when it comes to which fireworks are legal, and who can buy them, and which firearms are legal, and who can buy them. Leaving this up to individual states creates an impossible patchwork and makes the harder regulations in certain states virtually meaningless.
I agree, but OP is seeming to imply that gun control methods are ineffective and points to fireworks. I would suspect that the number of people launching fireworks in California is dramatically smaller per capita than states that have it legal. In that effect, one could say these control efforts reduce firework usage. It isnt perfect, but to try and use the argument that crimes will still happen disregards the data.
I haven't looked at any firework usage data, but that would be an interesting thing to see. Also imagine that you'd just have to trust the collected data because how the hell would they collect that? How would they know who is lighting which fireworks, and what they bought, and so on. I can see them going off of sales from the shacks that you mentioned, but what about everything else?
The guns will then come from out of the country. If you make something illegal it doesn’t stop people from buying them, it stops law abiding people from getting them. There are still criminals with guns in every country of the world regardless of laws.
Transnational borders are much harder to permeate than interstate borders. Obviously, there are illegal goods smuggled into the US every day, but weapons smuggling is treated much more seriously when it crosses national borders than when it is essentially “smuggled” between American states. Same would go for fireworks.
You can't buy an assault rifle from any store and you missed the point
Same in Sacramento county. People suck. They are still lighting them tonight because they can't handle grow up
Hot Take: Cities should be allowed to deploy drones to swoop in, take a video of the perpetrators setting off illegal fireworks, and then send them a fat $1k ticket in the mail. Geotag address. Use helicopters to navigate wider areas, release drones from there.
Want proof? You say “mistaken identity, it’s not me!” Sure. Come down to the court for your set date to fight this fine and we’ll show you your big, stupid face, well lit by your illegal fireworks, on a massive, hyper detailed flat screen 😆then they can fight it out… no “invasion of privacy”can be used because they’re on a public street, committing an illegal act - like sideshows.
All fines go towards all charities that help those impacted by (fireworks that set off) fires, lost pets aid, Vet organizations that provide mental support (ptsd), etc… my two cents! ✌️
Hundred thousand dollar system foiled by $5 sombrero.
until their sombrero catches on fire.
Drones and helicopters should be used to identify locations, and nearby police sent in to make arrests.
Lol like cops would go to that effort. They wont even write up reports for minor crimes these days
I would have it spearheaded by the fire department and the courts. Leave the police out of it. Unless things were violent, fights, etc that needed police intervention. Otherwise, the firework numbnuts should expect a fat fine in the mail they have to fight out in court. Too bad, so sad.
That's one of the only ways because there is no way to be able to cover that much ground at street-level, not to mention is being hard as hell to even determine where everything's being launched from
They do that in the town I live in. It only seems to encourage them to set off even more fireworks.
What's a camera cost these days that can do high resolution video of people's faces, at night, from a quadcopter at least several hundred feet up? It used to simply be not doable, now I think the technology exists but I'm curious what it costs to put that together.
Facism runs deep with this one
I like your enthusiasm but that's tough to do without fucking innocent people over. Making a court date is really hard for a lot of people, who would have to choose between keeping their job / child care and showing up to defend themselves for something they didn't do, and it can be hard to prove you didn't do something. In order to get a truly irrefutable positive ID the drone would have to fly very close, which is tough.
I dunno, maybe it would work. I just see that coming with a lot more hardship than success.
Sac does
There's a relatively important bit of information that is completely missing from the article: what's the average number of daily fires that are responded to? If I don't know what the normal level is, I don't know how significant the current number might be.
I’m gonna get hate for this but so be it:
I think fireworks should be legal on July 4th.
1) People are doing them anyway, no amount of fines is gonna stop that. People love them it’s going to happen.
2) When they are legal people do them in the street or beach. Places with much lower fire risk. When illegal people will do them in dangerous places to not get caught.
3) if legal laws could be put in place like “only legal in streets or beach”. It could reduce damage.
4) they could be taxed like Newark does and fund schools and firefighters.
As much as they always get hate the majority of people where I am watch all the illegal fireworks and enjoy them. Fireworks are exciting and can be done safely.
When they are legal people do them in the street or beach.
Everyone already does them in the street in SF. Literally in the middle of intersections.
I like this. Rent a place on the beach where you can set off these types of fireworks.
I used to love 4th of July, but now I'm all freaked out from the fires. I live by a bunch of dry brush and all day yesterday and last night I was cuddling my poor freaked out dog with the evacuation bag ready to go.
I like the idea of designated spots too if the street is too general, like pick a place where they can be reasonably contained and have a fireman on duty and let people have at it.
Blossom CBD is a life saver for scared pups. We used it last night and not one shiver or panting, panicked pup. Not even thundercoat (thundervest?) come close to calming our little ones as much…
I’ll go one further. There should be larger city/county fireworks shows , open to everyone, on a designated day every single month.
They’re being set off in a controlled environment
If you miss the show, you don’t have to wait a year . There’s less temptation to do them illegally if you know that you can just catch next month’s show.
You can celebrate your birthday or special day by going to the fireworks show with some friends. You don’t need to light them on your driveway.
The illegal, smaller fireworks that you do at home aren’t as alluring because you can see fireworks several times a year if you want to.
Local vendors selling snacks = increased local spending.
Ya, get to the root of the issue: people like the experience of having their own fireworks. You could even go a step farther and have regulated areas where people could launch them off, similar to a gun range.
I'd be all for legal, contained fireworks. I'm old enough to want to add a curfew as well. Not after 11
I’m from New England and the the fireworks hate here is completly perplexing. Like back home EVERYONE loves them. Every 4th every party would have them. The town would have a cool show at night. We’d have Roman candle fights. Great memories.
Here people act like dogs hate them too. I have 4 dogs. My dogs give no fucks about fireworks.
It’s easy enough to not shoot off fireworks where they won’t cause a fire. So many paved parking lots in east bay. I’m actually a fireworks fan, I don’t buy them or shoot them off, but they don’t bother me at all. However, starting fires is avoidable if you’re not being a reckless idiot.
Russia flooding Ukraine was a war crime. An earthquake generating machine would be a mad scientist's doomsday weapon. But everyone needs to play with fireworks, like we haven't lost more lives to fire than every flood and earthquake combined.
I'm on Instagram with two police officers and two firefighters - all in the Bay Area. All four posted stories of them blasting off illegal fireworks.
I don't get it.
Coco county was peaceful (sr/danville)
Coco County is, in fact, the county in the article.
SR was quiet so has to be the other coco cities
Even if not explicitly stated, we can all assume it was Oakley and Brentwood.
Dont forget Antioch
User deleted comment
10mo
Diverse really, ones whose actually tried in life, got good education, great estate and financial planning. Handful of black families which youd probably consider uncle toms, tons of hispanics and your favorite asians (like indians, afghans, persians, few chinese or south whatever asians) and White folks.
Id ask the same too if I still get overdraft fees from banks
Bro said overdraft fees. Im dead. Ay yooooo
Figures, I'm right across the river from Antioch, and I heard fireworks all goddamn night till about midnight.
Rookie numbers.
Lmao my neighbors didn't gve a fk about the ban they still lit those fireworks up!!! The night was full of explosions.
Well if police would actually do their jobs
Maybe stop paying them if they aren't
Who do you think are lighting them off?
User deleted comment
10mo
Ignorance is in style these days. I miss watching the ones in my old neighborhood getting cuffed for lighting them off in a threat zone. All that drunken kicking and screaming when the signs clearly stated any fireworks set off east of this road will result in arrest.