Fire marshals confiscate fireworks

Crackdown on illegal fireworks will continue this weekend

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

The barge of fireworks, worth an estimated $10,000, was set up for an event by residents of the neighborhood of Overlook Drive, said Deputy Chief State Fire Marshal Duane Svites of the Maryland State Fire Marshal’s Southern Regional Office. The neighbors gather to do this ‘‘shoot” and this is not the first time, he said. They had no license and no permit on file so the fire marshal’s office took possession of the barge and confiscated the fireworks, Svites said.

While riding on the river, employees of Department of Natural Resources saw the barge on the river and thought it looked like fireworks were on the barge. They investigated and verified that there were illegal fireworks on the barge, Svites said.

Svites said he was supervising a public display of fireworks at Golden Beach when he got the call from DNR at about 8:30 p.m. and responded to the scene.

The Calvert County Sheriff’s Office was called to assist the fire marshals because of a potential hostile environment toward the fire marshals, Lt. Ricky Thomas said. Thomas, also part of the sheriff’s office bomb squad, said people were upset about the confiscation, but no one was arrested at the scene.

Several hundred consumer-grade fireworks and some tubes were diluted and made safe, then unloaded from the barge, which took about four hours, Svites said. The fireworks were Class C black powder, which can be bought off the shelf and are legal in some states, but not in Maryland, he said.

The bomb squad defused the fireworks, which were linked together and set off to ignite from one fuse, Svites said, noting that the relay of fireworks could have knocked off stabilizers, causing rockets to shoot toward the people.

‘‘That’s why we have laws against this,” he said.

A criminal investigation is continuing and could result in some sort of criminal proceeding, but no one has been charged at this time, Svites said.

For years there has been a relaxed nature toward illegal fireworks, but it’s gotten so bad that this weekend enforcement will be emphasized, he said. The sheriff’s office and state police will be giving out citations for shooting off illegal fireworks, which carries a $250 fine, Svites said.

All the stands selling fireworks in the county have been checked and all are licensed and selling legal fireworks, he said. Only ground-based sparklers are permitted in Maryland, and all displays are required to be public by law, he added.