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Tuesday, February 9, 2010 |
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Officials say ban made for quiet holiday
Published January 7, 2009
SEGUIN — Public safety officials worried about a repeat of last year’s New Year’s Eve fireworks conflagration this past week on Tuesday reported the quietest New Year’s holiday — perhaps in decades.
Sheriff Arnold Zwicke visited commissioner’s court Tuesday to report New Year’s Eve passed pretty much like any “regular Saturday night” in terms of the numbers of calls sheriff’s deputies and fire departments answered.
“We had 25 reports related to fireworks and four fires on New Year’s Eve,” Zwicke said. “I want to thank the county commissioners, Judge Wiggins, the news media, the public, my sheriff’s deputies and the fire departments and everybody for one of the smoothest New Year’s weekends we’ve experienced in my 17 years of working for the county.”
None of the fires were in the Redwood subdivision, which Zwicke mentioned in commissioner’s court two weeks ago when he recommended that County Judge Mike Wiggins declare a drought disaster emergency and ban fireworks use or sale — advice Wiggins followed.
“No, as far as I know, nobody burned anything down in Redwood,” Zwicke said.
But many of the fireworks-related calls deputies answered over the holidays were at Redwood, which is located in the northern reaches of the county, just outside San Marcos, where fireworks were legal and were sold over the holidays.
In all, for the period running Dec. 20-Jan. 5, Zwicke said deputies answered 42 fireworks calls, issued two citations, five warnings and seized three batches of illegal fireworks.
Over New Year’s 2008, firefighters went to 70 blazes believed caused by fireworks in a 24-hour period.
“On most of these calls, the fireworks were gone before the deputies arrived,” Zwicke said. “This was a lot different from last year.”
The Marion Volunteer Fire Department had a call for a grass fire off South Santa Clara Road at midnight last Thursday morning, and the Geronimo and York Creek departments answered grass fire calls early Thursday.
McQueeney Volunteer Fire Department Chief Tim Bogisch said he’d heard of only one small fire caused by fireworks this year.
New Berlin Volunteer Fire Department Chief Kurt Strey said his part of the county, which abuts southern Bexar County, was quiet — until a heater is believed to have caused a fire that destroyed a home in western Guadalupe County late Sunday morning.
“I couldn’t believe it, but we were very, very quiet,” Strey said. “We didn’t go out Wednesday night, and Thursday we made one call, basically for an illegal controlled burn.”
Strey attributed the change from a year ago to the fireworks ban and to news media coverage of the ban and the heightened penalties for fireworks infractions.
“We appreciate getting the word out — and being able to spend the holiday with our families,” Strey said.
With last year’s experience in mind in June, the county banned sale or use of fireworks ahead of the Fourth of July fireworks season.
At Gov. Rick Perry’s behest, the county entered into talks with fireworks sellers to try to arrive at a compromise for this season, should drought conditions drag on.
Guadalupe County Emergency Management Coordinator Dan Kinsey said the difference between New Year’s 2008 and 2009, when there were only four, provided stark evidence that irresponsible use of fireworks was a problem a year ago.
“It’s a dramatic difference from one year to the next even though this year the conditions were much worse,” Kinsey said. “I don’t think anyone who would say our problem last year wasn’t fireworks would have any grounds to stand on. This is circumstantial evidence, but it’s strong circumstantial evidence. The ban was a success, and we know that this works.”
That being said, Kinsey said the county would continue to work with fireworks sellers to plan to try fireworks “safe zones” in the future — a goal both sides were working toward when Wiggins, at the advice of Zwicke, the county commissioners and the county’s fire chiefs scuttled a safety zone experiment at the last possible moment, declaring a drought disaster on Dec. 17 that Perry two days later extended through midnight tonight.
Wiggins said he was loathe to discount the recommendation of his colleagues on the court and the county’s public safety officials, including Zwicke — and that his hand was forced when Bexar County banned fireworks and wouldn’t open safety zones because of fire safety concerns.
Kinsey said safe zones remain a possibility — but not if Guadalupe County were the only one in the area to allow sales and a place to pop fireworks.
“If we’re the lone dog on that, I don’t think it could work,” Kinsey said. “But I think if we can get everyone in the region on board for the safe zones, we’d still consider them.”
For his part, Wiggins said he’d hope for rain so the fireworks issue doesn’t come up again. But he thanked all those involved — especially the citizens who complied with the law — for their part in averting a possible fireworks-related tragedy, and said if the issue must come up again, he believed he knew how the county must deal with it.
“I don’t think there’s any question that this court is public safety minded and will do whatever it has to do to protect the public,” he said. “Of course, I’d rather take the rain.”
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