Fireworks go on sale in Sonoma County

At just $5.99, a state-sanctioned combustible device called “Purple Rain” offers a “small but spectacular” way to celebrate Independence Day. For block parties, a $500 package called “The Big Bang” may fill the bill.

Those items are at opposite ends of the price spectrum at the Sebastopol Gravenstein Lions Club’s fireworks stand, which opened at noon Tuesday in the Safeway parking lot in downtown Sebastopol.

“It puts a little zip in the Fourth of July,” said Mike Mortensson, a club vice president.

Seven days of fireworks sales also puts $15,000 to $20,000 in the service club’s coffers, destined for distribution to 20 or more organizations and individuals. Last year’s recipients included an Analy High School student with impaired vision who received two computers from the Lions.

There is no other way to earn that much money in such a short time, Mortensson said.

Sebastopol is one of four Sonoma County cities - including Petaluma, Rohnert Park and Cloverdale - that permit sales and use of “safe and sane” fireworks, approved by the state fire marshal, during the holiday period. In all other cities and the unincorporated area, the closest people can legally come to pyrotechnics is at public fireworks shows.

James Williams, the county fire marshal, said the abundance of thick, dry vegetation precludes the use of any fireworks outside city limits.

Statewide, nearly 300 communities permit fireworks sales, but there have occasionally been challenges to the practice that typically benefits local nonprofit organizations.

Sebastopol Fire Chief Bill Braga said the City Council heard concerns about fireworks last year in the midst of prolonged drought. Checking city records, Braga said he found no fire calls due to legal fireworks in the previous 20 years.

But there have been grass and brush fires - none with any property loss - due to illegal aerial devices, he said. “Those are the ones that cause us the most grief,” Braga said.

In Sebastopol, people can buy and ignite fireworks through midnight on the Fourth. “They can blow ’em off every night if they want to,” Braga said.

Residents of the four cities are advised to check on regulations specific to their town, he said. Statewide, fireworks started 458 fires last year that burned 395 acres, caused eight injuries and did $1.7 billion in damage, Cal Fire reported. The tally did not distinguish whether the source was legal or illegal fireworks, said Daniel Berlant, a Cal Fire spokesman.

The fireworks business is booming nationwide, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association, an industry trade group that forecasts $800 million in consumer sales this year, up $50 million from 2015.

Counting revenue from display fireworks, last year’s sales exceeded $1 billion for more than 285 million pounds of fireworks.

There were an estimated 12,000 fireworks-related injuries last year, the association said, noting that the injuries per 100,000 pounds of fireworks had declined from 22.8 in 1980 to 4.2 in 2015. Baseball equipment caused 10 times more injuries than fireworks last year, the group said, citing U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission figures.

“Fireworks are as American as baseball, hot dogs and apple pie,” the trade group said in a press release.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.