BEXAR COUNTY, TX – Right now, there’s a ban on aerial fireworks in unincorporated Bexar County for a few days.
It’s created a lot of confusion about what’s legal and what’s not as we approach the Fourth of July.
Fireworks stand owners say this type of ban is not a surprise, and it’s actually been imposed the past few summers.
They say it only affects a handful of products.
Alamo Fireworks says everything else on the shelf – from sparklers to Roman Candles – are okay to use right now.
"The things that are illegal to sell and to shoot are stick rockets and missiles with fins,” Luke Girdley with Alamo Fireworks says.
Those are the aerial fireworks that will now go back in boxes because they’re banned in Bexar County.
“There’s a greater fire danger,” Girdley says about those products. “They will still have a burning ember when they come back down.”
Bexar County Interim Fire Marshal Craig Roberts says grass in Bexar County has dried out significantly the past few weeks.
"If a firework falls into something like this [field] and it's not completely extinguished, it will smolder,” he says.
Roberts says that’s why he convinced County Judge Nelson Wolff to impose a disaster declaration on aerial fireworks.
It’s a 60-hour ban that expires Saturday, June 30 at noon.
That’s also Governor Rick Perry’s deadline to decide if the ban should be extended.
"That would then extend the declaration until July 6,” Roberts says.
But even then, only those specific aerial fireworks would be banned.
The dazzling displays we all look forward to are still on for now.
As for a ban on all fireworks, Roberts says with a week until Independence Day, he does still have to make that call. Still, he says he doesn’t anticipate taking that drastic step.
