Fire Chief Will Tell City Committee Wednesday That Reports of Illegal July 4 Fireworks Dropped this Year By 48%

Three top city fire, police and city hall officials are scheduled to tell Pasadena’s Public Safety Committee Wednesday that illegal fireworks activity reported leading up to and on the Fourth of July weekend this year dropped significantly below previous years.

The trio were originally to have delivered their presentation on July 20, but Mayor Gordo had to leave the meeting early that day and this report was continued to August 3.

Documents prepared for the meeting show reported illegal fireworks dropped by 48% from 2021 and 69% from 2020.

Enforcement officers wrote just nine citations, down from 64 in 2020, and seized 19 pounds of illegal fireworks versus 429 pounds in 2020, the documents said.

There were no injuries from fireworks in Pasadena this year, the officials will report.

“In the last year and a half, we’ve made really diligent efforts on the prevention and education and even some on the enforcement side to reduce fireworks and to make sure that the community at large understands the reason behind it,” Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustin told Pasadena Now ahead of the meeting. “I personally believe that we’re on the right track.”

But Augustin expects to hear complaints from some residents, acknowledging that “there’s still a significant amount of fireworks that went off on the 4th of July.”

“It’ll be a good opportunity for us to present where we’re at, what efforts we’ve done, what the statistics show and where the gaps are and hear feedback — then equally important.  if there’s an appetite for a change in direction or more enforcement,” Augustin said.

If the outcome is a push for greater enforcement activity, Augustin said the Fire Dept. will “come back with the cost of that, because we’re about at the maximum capacity that our two agencies can do between police and fire within our existing budgets.”

The Fire Chief is scheduled to make the presentation with Pasadena Police Commander Art Chute and City Public Information Officer Lisa Derderian.

The meeting convenes at 4:00 p.m. and may be watched at:http://pasadena.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=9