Illegal fireworks intercepted

Friday, June 27, 1997 | 11:17 a.m.

Folks who have had their fireworks confiscated while returning from neighboring counties or Indian reservations thought they had fooled officials this year.

But many of those who ordered from out-of-state businesses got a rude awakening when they showed up at local shipping firms to pick up their illegal explosives.

"When they went to the trucking yards to pick them up, we were waiting because the shipping companies had contacted us," said Clark County Fire Department Chemical Engineer Mike Cyphers, who is in charge of local fireworks activities.

"All of the local fire departments had contacted the shippers to ask if they would cooperate with us on this, and their response was excellent. The packages all are marked Class 1.4 explosives, so they knew what was in them and they didn't want them sitting on their docks."

Authorities gave the mail-order buyers two choices. The first was to refuse the shipment, sending the unopened packages back to their point of origin, and avoid a citation.

The other choice was to accept the shipment and have it confiscated on the spot. They also got fined, Cyphers said.

The weeks before and after the Fourth of July are the busiest for firefighters valleywide as illegal fireworks spark up to four times the number of fires and other emergency calls than on a normal day.

Clark County Fire Department spokesman Bob Leinbach noted that last year, in the unincorporated county alone, there were 33 confirmed fireworks fires between June 20 and Dec. 27 that caused $325,000 damage.

That number could have been greater because there were a number of brush fires that were classified only as brush fires because investigators, hopping from blaze to blaze, did not have time to fully probe whether they were fireworks-ignited.

Area firefighters on Thursday held their annual demonstration of igniting illegal fireworks for the media to point out the dangers. Bottle rockets, M-80s, M-100s, Roman candles and firecrackers were set off.

The low-quality devices that didn't fizzle in a second or two or go off course -- one spent cartridge whizzed by cameramen and reporters -- made some interesting explosions. But for the most part, they did not appear to be worth the several dollars for which they retail.

Then firefighters demonstrated Safe and Sane-brand fireworks, which go on sale starting Saturday at more than 275 local charity booths around the valley. Although some of them were far less than spectacular, a few of the larger ones produced showers that lasted a couple of minutes.

While the illegal fireworks for the most part had short, poorly fastened paper fuses -- one went off a split-second after Cyphers lit it, but he was not injured -- the Safe and Sane fireworks have coated safety fuses.

One illegal device had no label, plaster seals, a short fuse and explosive materials equivalent to "a quarter of a stick of dynamite," Cyphers said.

Safe and Sane fireworks include fountains, cones, sparklers -- mostly items that spray a shower of sparks and smoke but do not fly.