In Wichita, more fireworks tickets & complaints but fewer ER visits this July 4
Emergency and medical crews in Wichita saw a mixed bag in the week leading up to and on the July 4 holiday, with fewer people reportedly visiting local emergency rooms for fireworks-related injuries but more citizens receiving citations for banned items and more nuisance complaints phoned into 911 dispatchers compared to last year.
It was also a better year for house fires during the nine days fireworks could be legally discharged in the city, with fewer than half the number reported in 2020.
Fire crews monitoring the city for illegal fireworks over the July 4 holiday weekend wrote a total of 88 citations and confiscated several items banned under local ordinance, Wichita Fire Department Battalion Chief Jose Ocadiz said Tuesday during an afternoon news briefing held at downtown’s Fire Station No. 1. Mortars and artillery shells were confiscated most often, he said. Some illegal fireworks taken had been discharged while others were unopened.
By comparison, last year the department issued 75 tickets connected to illegal fireworks over the holiday season, or 13 fewer, he said.
Ocadiz said the fire department has “all the evidence collected” connected to the prohibited items but is “still collecting data as a whole for the fireworks enhancement patrol teams from the medical side,” including fireworks-related injuries suffered by people across the city.
But overall, he said, the patrol teams “did what we were asked to do” to enforce the city’s fireworks ordinance.
In recent years, the number of fireworks-related citations issued by the Wichita Fire Department around the Independence Day holiday has been increasing. A 2012 Eagle investigation into how the ordinance was enforced in the city found tickets were seldom written for illegal fireworks.
Ten years ago, in 2011, the department issued just three citations on or near July 4, for example.
In Wichita, fireworks that shoot sparks or flames six feet in any direction and Roman candle-type fireworks that throw flaming balls are prohibited. The fine for violating the ordinance is $250 plus court costs.
“We’re going to review and see what we can do to improve or see which direction our fire chief and city council would like us to continue on for next year,” Ocadiz said.
Ocadiz said this year the fire department patrol crews, which worked in 10 teams, were stationed around the city on July 3 and July 4. Fire investigators also went out on July 2 and wrote a handful of citations, he said.
The department assigned four teams each to the east and west sides of Wichita, while the remaining two roved around the city, he said. The teams monitored “hot spot areas” that were pinpointed using 2020 fireworks complaint data.
Out west, one of the largest hot spots was located along 21st Street between Hoover and Maize roads, Ocadiz said. But smaller ones “were all over the city.”
“We’re still enforcing the city ordinance, and we always want to just ask the citizens during this period of time to be respectful,” he said.
In addition to writing tickets for illegal fireworks, Wichita fire crews responded to three fireworks-related house fires between June 27 and July 5, the time period when fireworks were sold legally in the city this year.
Last year, there were seven fireworks-related house fires, he said.
Of this year’s fires, one started from a firework that was discarded into a trash can that ignited after it was moved into a garage. Another was caused by an “errant firework that shot into a detached garage” that the homeowner initially that was fully extinguished, Ocadiz said.
The third fire started after a spark from a firework landed on a plastic cooler. The resulting flames traveled up the siding of the home and spread into the attic.
There were no injuries to residents or firefighters, Ocadiz said. But one cat died.
The department is still collecting data on exactly how many trash can and dumpster fires crews responded to, Ocadiz said, and plan to report their final tallies of all fireworks-related activity to the city council at a later date.
As for fireworks-related nuisance complaints, Sedgwick County Emergency Communications director Elora Forshee said dispatchers took 1,184 calls on the county’s non-emergency line while it was operational July 1-5. That’s a slight increase over the 1,075 calls received last year.
“We were really on par with what was done in 2020,” she said, adding that the holiday was busy for both emergency and non-emergency reports. The non-emergency line was open from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. daily.
“Every seat in the house was full at 911 to make sure that we were responsive to the community needs.”
She acknowledged that some people phoning in fireworks complaints were frustrated by the time they spoke with a dispatcher because they had to wait for their calls to be answered.
But, she said, those who contacted 911 with emergencies like house fires and disturbances didn’t have long wait times.
On July 4, Sedgwick County dispatchers took 1,999 emergency calls — about 400 more than they answered on a recent Saturday, which is typical for a busy summer night.
“The system worked beautifully, as designed, to make sure that those emergency calls were answered very promptly and that they got the correct response from emergency services,” Forshee said.
Patient tallies at area hospitals, meanwhile, were also lower than last year.
Wesley Medical Center’s four ER locations reported seeing a total of 20 patients from June 27 to July 4 for fireworks-related conditions that ranged from mild burns and lacerations to “multiple finger amputations,” eye injuries and severe burns. The fireworks blamed for the injuries included sparklers, smoke sticks, “200-gram multi shots” and artillery shells, Wesley Healthcare spokeswoman Andrea Easterly said by email.
Last year, the Wesley ERs treated a total of 23 people.
Staff at the Ascension Via Christi St. Francis Regional Burn Center saw a total of 21 patients referred to its facility from June 27 to July 5, two-thirds of whom were teens and children.
Their conditions included injuries primarily to their hands and faces, burns, abrasions and soft-tissue injuries caused by mortars, sparklers, firecrackers and “smoke bombs that reportedly exploded in patients’ hands,” Ascension spokeswoman Roz Hutchinson said by email.
Last year, 32 people were treated at the burn center, she said. She did not have the number of patients who visited each Ascension Via Christi ER location for fireworks injuries.
This story was originally published July 6, 2021 at 5:38 PM.
