Travis County Commissioners Court
December 9, 2008
Item 4
4. Consider and take appropriate action regarding the prohibition of the sale or use of restricted fireworks in the unincorporated area of Travis County.
>> thank you, very much, I'm danny hobby executive manager of emergency services and today I'm -- we have something for you to consider and to take action regarding an order to prohibit the sale or use of restricted fireworks in the unincorporated areas in Travis County. I'm here today, though, not by myself. I have some very good representatives and supporters in our community that also are going to have some announcements for you. They all just flow together. So as I'm addressing the court today, I'm also addressing the public, our citizens of Travis County that are now listening by television. Because we are in a situation now where we must pay attention and we must be aware of our surroundings and even though we want to have fun and have a wonderful holiday season, that we don't need something that's -- that's tragic to happen based upon the fact that we just did not know the circumstances they were in. So today I appeal to the court, to pass this order. This order is -- again is for the sale or use of restricted fireworks. Now, how that's defined is in regards to specifically in the order you will see that it means those items that are classified as sky rockets with sticks and missiles with fins. And I have some experts all around me today that can go into detail and explain all of that to you if you need more information regarding that. But basically we are in a severe drought situation. In Travis County. We have now been designated as a high fire danger category. There are certain actions that need to be taken. We have relied on other resources to give us information based on our condition. One of those is the Texas forest service, the t.f.s., they actually are directed to determine our conditions, they use a rating called the kbdi, which I think pete baldwin has mentioned to you many times, that gives us kind of a standard to go by. They say it exists when you have an index of 575 or greater. When I wrote or pete wrote this memo on December the 1st, that index reading was in Travis County was 658. As of yesterday, it had gone up to 661. So I think that tells you the conditions that we're in and the actions that we need to take. So today I ask you to pass this order. Along with that, though, I think you're going to see there's other support that's coming our way for our citizens and also this is for our firefighters. So as we're talking about these conditions we want the safety of our firefighters as well as the safety of our citizens. So I would like to, if I could, as part of this, go now to a gentleman to my right who you all know, chester Davis, who is with american fireworks, and he would like to make some announcements for you in regards to this. And then I would like to refer to don smith, who is one of our fire chiefs and our emergency services districts, esd number 4, he also has announcement in regards to preparation for this holiday season. To my left is herschel lee, our assistant fire marshal with the fire marshal's office, so he's here to answer any question that's you might have with regards to his office and how they are gearing up for this season as well. Chester, if you don't mind it's yours.
>> sure. Judge and Commissioners, what we've decided to do, I've been in contact with all of the retailers and wholesalers that operate in Travis County and all of the surrounding counties, basically, we are offering to do is -- is not open the stands until Friday the 26th, which we bylaw could open on the 20th, we're going to cut out the six full days, probably take us that full day to get open, but we'll cut out six days of selling time and that should -- should work as well as it did last summer when we cut out part of our selling time for the fourth of July. It does decrease sales 70% or more. In lieu of the dry conditions we feel like it is appropriate to do the stick rocket and missile ban and it also on our part to -- to help with the situation is to limit the selling days as much as we possibly could. So we offer that to you, judge, and the Commissioners as well as we have done it in bastrop, hays, Williamson, caldwell and we hope that it will be successful.
>> thank you.
>> that's a significant move.
>> we want to be on the positive side not the negative side.
>> we appreciate that.
>> yes, ma'am, thank you.
>> Commissioners, don smith, I'm fire chief for Travis County fire control, esd number 4. We want to commend mr. Davis and the other fireworks industry people for assisting us in what could be a very bad fire season for us in terms of -- of the dry fuels that we have out in the county. Last year, some of you may know, that from about -- about 10:00 p.m. To about 2:33:00 a.m., the eastern side of Travis County was very active with fire response. In fact I don't think we had a Travis County fire truck in a situation during that time. They were all out on the road going from small fire to small fire trying to make sure they didn't get large. To be proactive this year, the Travis County fire chiefs got together, decided to -- to put together some task force groups that could respond to fire, very proactive manner. We're going to put together three task force groups, each would have two brush trucks, an engine or a tanker for water supply vehicle. In fact our engines carry a thousand gallons of water, so we kind of use them as a water tanker. They would be deployed two on the east side of 35 and one on the west side of 35. We'll have our crc contact working so that we have a crc officer at c tech working with the afd dispatch center. Afd will be a part of some of our task force groups. We will actually stand those groups up starting at 7:00 p.m. On the 31st, they will stay up until 5:00 a.m. If need be. When we put that concept out on the table, every Travis County fire department stepped up and said we want to be a part of that program. I i have to commend all of those departments out there who want to be proactive working together to make sure this happens. I spoke with mr. Gieselman earlier, I will send him an e-mail. Travis County hasments been active with us as part of the response for resources, in the past we have used some bulldozers of the counties. What we're lacking somewhat from the Travis County fire department side or water tankers and understand that t.n.r. Has several tankers, 3800-gallons to 4100-gallons -- if you think about that, a brush truck carries 250-gallons to maybe 500. If we put two brush trucks with one of those water tankers as a nurse vehicle, they could really stay on the scene for quite some time. I would ask that we be allowed to maybe use one or two of those tankers in that effort with our task forces. So our program is in place, chief warren had hoped to be here today to -- to explain the program to you. I think that it is designed very well and we look forward to -- to working with mr. Davis. This is a really great news for us because we think that -- that, you know, those -- the reduced sales will help us somewhat with the number of calls that we'll go on.
>> absolutely.
>> > afd stands for?
>> the Austin fire department.
>> okay. Sorry.
>> questions?
>> that's fantastic.
>> do we know how many of those calls from last year were from fireworks?
>> during that time period of -- of -- of probably around 10:00 p.m., that same question was asked at the chief's meeting, I think the answer was 99%. So I'm not sure if we had an official way of looking at it, but I think everybody was of the consensus that all of those were fireworks related.
>> do we know roughly the -- the incremental cost above a regular night of -- of that fire coverage, that fire protection coverage?
>> we did not put a dollar figure on there. Although we can. Easily. We'll be putting additional units in service. Some departments can only put one vehicle additional vehicle in service. Other departments are going to put two or three additional vehicles in service. So again a collective efforts to make sure that we have enough equipment out in the places where we need it.
>> this collective effort is just tremendous. You know, I'm -- I'm just in awe of what you all have done as far as the coordination this year. It might be good to put that number to it, maybe for next year we could do some psa's in advance of new year's, sort of alerting people to the cost, the public cost of -- of -- of irresponsible fireworks use on new year's eve.
>> be happy to get you some numbers.
>> that would be great.
>> thank you so much for what you all are doing.
>> thanks all of you.
>> have you talked with joe gieselman about the use of county tankers.
>> I spoke to him just a few moments ago. I'll be sending him an e-mail with a request of what we're looking at and where we would ask for them to be.
>> we may need an item on the agenda next week regarding those tankers. What -- what -- for residents who saw a few sprinkles during the last 24 hours I guess, myself included, we wonder what effect that might have on the drought index, what's the answer?
>> I believe when we go back and ask that question, we find out there was not significant enough moisture to really change the index. One of the floodplains we have is with Travis County being -- one of the problems that we have with track being as large as -- with Travis County being as large as it is, one area gets moisture the other not at all. That problem is probably, even if it does reduce a little bit, still be well over 600.
>> even with the little bit of moisture, the wind is the thing that's really killed us. It just dries -- dries it out as fast as any little bit of moisture comes down.
>> there's a predicted 25 to 35 miles an hour wind for the -- arriving this afternoon, which will probably negate what we have gained.
>> when we get a few showers, I normally get a few phone calls regarding lifting the ban. But we would need a -- a pretty heavy rain.
>> the most beneficial would be -- would be just a slow soaking rain over a period of a week would -- would actually be more beneficial as far as the -- the drought index. But a large rain at once would be helpful here, you are correct, sir.
>> but we probably need to take these actions unless there's just a sort of rain of history making proportion.
>> judge. I have given it considerable thought about what we could do in the industry. I know some of the counties have talked about shooting areas where you go out and you have -- you allow people to shoot fireworks in certain places. Unfortunately I don't favor that because it is not -- it has not worked real well in the areas. We are going to do it in guadalupe county where we have a racetrack, where we have actually rented where people can go shoot fireworks. But we were so successful last fourth of July. The 4th of July is so much larger in sales than it is christmas. That I thought this was the right thing to do. I did not have some of the rogue or independent, more independent fireworks dealers on board last time. I thought that they would come on board. But I have been working on them for about 60 days now, they are all on board. So when I tell you that -- that we won't open until the 26th day of December, I feel very, very comfortable telling you that these people are not going to open their doors until that time. November all committed to me that's exactly what they'll do. Hopefully that we will do a press conference that actually states the counties that are going with our program that we won't open until the 26th, we are not going to sell stick rockets. And the best part is we are our own watch dog. If there's someone out there doing something that we told you we will not do, I promise you within a little bit of time I will be there to visit with them personally out there. I did it last time, we will tight again this time. I'll make sure of it.
>> we appreciate that. Please express our appreciation to your industry colleagues.
>> absolutely.
>> judge, we appreciate you and the Commissioners court. Travis County, although I live in hays county, I call Travis County home.
>> we won't tell hays that.
>> well, I move approval of the proposed order to prohibit the sale and use of the two restricted types of fireworks, sky rockets with sticks and missiles with fins. And I think that our wording is broad enough for us to accept the offer of the industry to begin selling fireworks this year on December 26th, 2008.
>> second.
>> instead of December 20th. If we need to ratify that second part the acceptance next week, we'll do that, okay?
>> okay.
>> any discussion of the motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you all very much.
>> thank you.
>> judge, let me ask, tell me the days, chester, that you can legally sell fireworks and are there days that you can legally --
>>
>> [multiple voices]
>> we can open on December the 20th by state law. You can sell 24 hours a day up until midnight on January the 1st. During the christmas holidays.
>> the fourth is June the 24th through July the 4th at midnight. We do -- if you are within 100 miles of the Texas border, you can sell on cinco de mayo and we have tried selling fireworks on cinco de mayo and -- and we ought to do something else than sell fireworks on cinco de mayo, because we didn't do very well.
>> what about the use of fireworks, chester? Can you buy -- you can only buy them, but can you pop fireworks any time that you want?
>> no, sir. You must buy your fireworks during the state prescribed 24 or 29 days I think now. The difference is that there is no state law, that says that you can't shoot fireworks any other time of the year as long as you are not violating any county or any city or any other type of laws. I will honestly tell you that we do not advocate that in any way. In fact we do our best to tell people that they should shoot everything they buy and dispose of their fireworks and clean up their mess and go home and when they want more fireworks buy them again the next time that they are legal to purchase and not be storing or keeping leftover fireworks.
>> so in other words the law -- there has to be maybe -- let's say to get folks to do just what you suggested as far as let's use the fireworks within this certain time frame when you purchase them, is there a possibility that the law has to be maybe changed to make sure that -- sure that off season firework use out of season firework use is something that may need to be looked at?
>> it is a thing that would take the state legislature to change to put in something in effect that says you can only shoot fireworks at certain times of the year.
>> so that has not been an attempt.
>> it's never been done,, no, sir.
>> that may need to be looked at. With the drought situation that we're experiencing here within this whole region, we are in a terrible drought. I can't imagine folks going out, using fireworks after the fireworks time line for --
>> [indiscernible] has expired. That will, of course, encourage possibly increase and some of the same things that -- that our fire folks here have brought up, which would be an added cost to the taxpayers and everybody else because of out of season firework use, so that may be something that -- that the state legislature needs to maybe look at. Has anybody in your particular field of work have actually kicked anything up to the state legislature to say hey this is the cause and effect type of situation.
>> truthfully, in the 35 years I've been in the firework business, the public is -- has become much more educated and they are much more cognizant of their environment, I really don't have an issue with people shooting fireworks out of season. I have a bigger problem with people making illegal fireworks. And doing things that away. Most of the people truthfully, if they don't shoot them new year's eve and don't shoot them fourth of July, they are really not into it.
>> okay.
>> that's the truth.
>> all right.
>> thank you.
>> chester, thanks for, you know, being who you have been in the community. You've always been a real standup guy, a man of your word, you know, with me, I just want you to know that I appreciate that.
>> me as well Commissioners, I'm going to miss you terribly.
>> gentlemen, if we could look for the future at the possibility of some voluntary designated shoot off spots in eastern Travis County particularly, we might be able to attract people to a safer place because the economies of scale, we get to see their fireworks and everyone else's too. Perhaps we could look into that and see if that would be beneficial at all for the fourth of July.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> let's take up the consent items.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> bless you, wish you the best.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 3:10 PM