Playing with fire

For hours after the downtown fireworks display ended in Sparks on July 4, fireworks continued to explode in adjoining neighborhoods into July 5. No arrests were reported.

These were personal fireworks, which become more elaborate each year, beyond the sparklers and cherry bombs that once were common. Some of those used this year, such as multi-shot, mortar-style devices, sent fiery charges 30 or 40 feet into the air.

The Sparks local code reads, “The possession, manufacture, storage, sale, handling and use of fireworks are prohibited.”

In Reno, the municipal code reads, “It is unlawful for any person to have, possess, keep, store, handle, manufacture, sell, offer for sale, expose for sale, sell at retail, or use or explode any fireworks and/or pyrotechnics.”

Washoe County code: “No person may possess, discharge, set off or cause to be discharged in or into any portion of a county park any firecrackers, torpedoes, rockets, fireworks, explosives or other substance harmful to the life or safety of any person.”

There is no one-size-fits-all law on the matter. Each municipality has its own, and some of them are unusual. Nye County, for instance, has ordinances that seem to encourage the use of fireworks—in other counties. Under the law, purchase of fireworks is legal, but using them or keeping them in Nye County is not.

“You can purchase fireworks here and when you check out you have to sign a fireworks purchaser's form that says you are not going to discharge them other than at a county-approved shooters site with a valid permit, and you are not going to lie when you fill out the form,” fireworks merchant Doug Burda told the Pahrump Valley Times last week. “You also agree that you will remove the fireworks from Nye County within 24 hours. Basically the customer understands that when they come here, they are going to get a good deal on fireworks, they can't shoot them off here, and they have to get them out of here within 24 hours.”

In California, police closely watch the Nevada border. In the last two weeks of June, officers in San Bernardino County alone confiscated more than 12,000 illegal fireworks, some of them trucked in from Nevada.