STOCKTON, Calif. — Stockton Fire officials released preliminary figures on the efforts of their illegal fireworks mitigation task force from over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.
Stockton Deputy Fire Chief Shannon Lewis told ABC10 the task force consisted of employees from both the fire department and the police department.
The biggest impact made by the task force, according to Shannon, was confiscating approximately 225 pounds of illegal fireworks. That is an increase of 132% over the same period of time in 2020.
More than 200 calls for service came into the police department over the holiday weekend. There were 42 tips of illegal fireworks use reported on the Ask Stockton internet-based reporting system. Ninety-nine additional illegal fireworks complaint reports were made and categorized as “other.”
Shannon said the fire department alone received 322 calls for service on July 4. Overall, service calls were actually down this year compared to 2021.
The total number of citations issued due to illegal fireworks use was not available.
Crews responded to five structure fires, including homes and at least one business. Those incidents are still being investigated and right now, fire officials cannot confirm if fireworks were the cause.
All of the figures released by Stockton Fire are preliminary. Shannon said it could be at least a month before all incident reports are finalized and the exact numbers are revealed.
Read more from ABC10
Illegal fireworks were going on well into the night on July 4, but a few fires cropped up because of legal fireworks as well.
