Local firefighters were *quite* busy on the Fourth of July

This week, we looked into a reader question about how the number of tickets for illegal fireworks on Independence Day compares to the number of complaints about them that come in every year. Now that the big day has passed, we reached out to officials to see how their Thursday nights were going.

“It was a busy night for the entire metro area, I’ll tell you that,” Sean Dunnion, Aurora Fire Department Public Information Officer Tell us.

His colleagues responded to 108 medical and fire calls between 8 p.m. and midnight. Like everyone we spoke to, Dunnion said his department is still trying to determine how many of those were directly related to fireworks. Whatever the details, there were a lot of them.

“Very busy,” he said. “That’s a hopping thing. It’s very busy. I can tell you that.”

Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

Denver Fire Department Deputy Chief J.D. Chism said his colleagues responded to 126 fires between Thursday and Friday. 119 of those were trash or yard fires, compared with just 28 on June 4.

Makenzie Dale, a police inspector with South Metro Fire Rescue, said residents in Littleton, Centennial and other parts of the south metro area witnessed about 50 fireworks-related fires, as well as several medical emergencies.

“One adult was seriously injured and one child suffered minor injuries in fireworks accidents. Both were taken to hospitals,” she wrote to us.

West Metro Fire Inspector Ronda Scholting told us they, too, have been criticized.

Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

“We had 29 fires between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m.,” she told us. “One was a structure fire that investigators believe was fireworks-related. The homeowners had thrown what they believed to be spent fireworks into a garbage can in the garage, which, as it turned out, had not been completely extinguished.”

The other 28 were grass fires, most of which she suspects were related to fireworks. This is a particularly bad time for this to happen, she added.

“We currently have a high fire threat and it has been going on in our district for almost two weeks,” she said.

Dunnion and Aurora Fire repeated what we heard from authorities before Fourth: Most of this stuff is illegal, so maybe don’t light it. But if you do, know that you’re literally playing with fire.

“Just make sure you do it safely,” he said. “People can still get hurt. Fires can still break out.”

And if you are curious about the impact of air pollution:

Even if you didn’t see any fires while watching informal fireworks displays around town, you certainly saw fog rising in the light of the street lamps.

Particle pollution more than doubled between 6 and 9 p.m., according to state air quality data.

Data Source: Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

Between the growing threat of fires as the climate warms and broader concerns about pollution, people have begun talking about banning fireworks altogether. But one thing was clear Thursday: Many Denver residents didn’t get the memo.