LACFD report proves LAAG was right on fireworks

LAAG just located the "2005 Fireworks Report" prepared by the LA County Fire Dept. for all county ares they patrol and all cities in the county that contract with them for fire protection. Fortunately the County provided all the raw data on the fires caused by Fireworks, both "illegal", "safe and sane" and fires caused by both or an unknown source believed to be some type of pyrotechnic device, legal or illegal.

Take a look at the chart below. Pay particular attention to the top row as compared to the middle row. What this shows is that County wide is that there are more than twice the incidents involving ALL types of fireworks (both "illegal" and "safe & sane") in the cities that allow safe and sane versus the cities that outlaw all firework use. Now what is even more interesting is that if you look at only incidents involving "illegal" fireworks (those banned statewide) (column 6) there is still almost twice the number of incidents in cities that allow safe and sane fireworks as those that don't.

Click on chart to enlarge it.



So LAAG appears to have been correct in its conclusion (during the Nov 2006 election) that cities that allow safe and sane fireworks are magnets not only for "illegal" fireworks but an increased number of incidents involving only "illegal" fireworks. This data is borne out also by the incidents in the County of LA areas, all of which ban safe and sane fireworks.

Also remember that all this data and the types of fireworks that caused the fires or injuries was all prepared by the LA County Fire Dept. Not LAAG or the fireworks companies.

Another bit of information from the report. There was close to 200,000 property damage (not including brush fires or LACFD costs) from fireworks alone in 2005. Also there were 12 injuries. Again the fire figure is likely fairly accurate (as its hard to hide a fire) but the injury county is probably low especially in cases of adult injuries and not wanting to report and injury from use of an illegal firework.

If you would like to see a full copy of the report please contact us at the email address on the right side of this page.