AURORA | In a briefing room at Aurora police headquarters, firefighters and cops sat side-by-side shortly before sundown, ready to spend their evening tracking down fireworks.
The annual patrols are a partnership between Aurora police and fire. In a handful of police cruisers and fire department vehicles, police officers and firefighters ride together, looking for fireworks and writing tickets to whomever they catch.
“Mere possession is illegal in Aurora, whether they are lighting them or not,” said Aurora fire Capt. Siegfried Klein, one of the department’s fire investigators.
With the dry conditions, Klein told the police and firefighters what city leaders expect.
“I was told directly by the city manager that there is a zero-tolerance policy,” he said.
By the time the three-day fireworks crackdown was complete, firefighters and police officers had issued 24 tickets for fireworks violations. Each ticket carries a minimum fine of $250.
In 2012, firefighters issued about 50 tickets, Klein said, down from the more than 100 they typically issue in a given year. Part of the reason for the dip last summer was a statewide ban on fireworks, as well as high-profile and destructive fires near Fort Collins and Colorado Springs.
“Last year the citizens were actually very good,” he said.
There is no statewide ban this year, though fireworks are illegal in Aurora. Klein said that with the recent Black Forest fire having caused record damage, he hopes the continued drop is a sign residents notice the risk and opt to skip fireworks this time around.
“When you see 500 homes and two people dead, I’d hope it would cause some people to pause,” he said.
But catching people lighting fireworks can be tricky. On the curvy suburban streets of southeast Aurora, seeing a firework burst in the sky and figuring out what street it came from is rarely easy and often leads to several fruitless trips around the block.
Plus, even when they are on a designated fireworks patrol, arson investigators like Klein are still needed at other fire calls throughout the night.
On July 3, that meant starting their evening with a bomb scare at a local Walmart before Klein and Fire Inspector John Casessa could even start searching for fireworks. And once the search started and they headed to a report of fireworks in a neighborhood near Southlands Mall, a reported grass fire near Vassar Elementary School required them to turn back toward central Aurora. As they sped toward the grass fire, they got word of several teens lighting fireworks at an apartment complex near Saddle Rock Golf Course — not far from where they were when they headed for Vassar.
Finally, after firefighters on-scene at Vassar said they had the grass fire call covered, Klein and Casessa hustled back to that apartment complex near Saddle Rock — only to find a pool party with plenty of loud and rowdy teenagers with a remarkable supply of glow sticks. But no fireworks.
“They left the grill on,” Klein said as police officers shooed the teens away. “I turned it off.”
“That was a good glow stick bust,” Casessa said with a laugh as they strolled back to their vehicle.
A little after 10:30 p.m., as they considered heading back toward headquarters, the firefighters spotted a few mortars rocketing to the sky near Aurora reservoir. Klein switched off his headlights and with the windows rolled down, slowly rolled around the neighborhood, looking for the culprits. After a few minutes, he spotted them in front of their home in the Wheatlands subdivision, including one teen with a lighter still in hand.
In the garage, Klein found a sizeable stash of Black Cats, Roman Candles and mortars, among others. Any fireworks that shoot into the air or explode are illegal statewide, not just in Aurora.
There were two adults at the house, as well as several children, and Klein wrote one of the men there a ticket. He took the fireworks, too.
The man, who declined to give his name, said he took steps to make sure he was safe about the fireworks, including having his garden hose on and at the ready.
“I don’t see it as that big of a hazard,” he said. “But I can understand the decision that was made by the city.”
As for losing his fireworks stash the night before the holiday, the man said he was disappointed, but wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it.
“We didn’t spend that much,” he said as Casessa cataloged the fireworks and tossed them in an evidence bag.
Klein said most of the people who get fireworks tickets are like that man in the Wheatlands — disappointed to get busted, but generally pretty friendly about the whole thing. Every once in a while, someone will cop an attitude, but that’s pretty rare.
“Usually most everyone is cooperative with us,” he said.