EVERETT — The Snohomish County Council is considering banning fireworks sales in places where firing them off is already prohibited.
City governments have banned lighting fireworks in Brier, Edmonds, Everett, Lynnwood, Mill Creek, Mountlake Terrace, Mukilteo and Woodway. They’re also banned year-round in national parks and forests.
Fireworks can still be sold in areas where they are illegal to use. County Council member Strom Peterson would like to change that.
Peterson, who is also a Democratic state legislator, introduced the ordinance at a council committee meeting Tuesday. The council still needs to decide on a date for a public hearing — likely in May, according to a county spokesperson.
With hotter, drier summers and fires and animals, veterans and other with issues with the loud noises, “More and more people are realizing the ill effects of these fireworks,” Peterson said
Since 2020, fireworks have also been banned in the Southwest Urban Growth Area, an unincorporated swath of southwestern Snohomish County: south of Everett and Mukilteo, north of Edmonds and Lynnwood, and all around Mill Creek.
Fireworks have long been an explosive issue in Snohomish County.
In a 2019 advisory vote, about 56% of voters approved a fireworks ban in the Southwest Urban Growth Area. Following the non-binding vote, the County Council unanimously passed the ban.
But the ban on explosives stopped short of prohibiting sales.
Half of the 34 fireworks stands permitted by Snohomish County last year were in areas where their use is banned.
Mickie Gundersen, 82, supported the ban, but thinks it could’ve gone a step further. Gundersen lives in a rural neighborhood near Kennard Corner, in the urban growth area. People light off fireworks near her property, she said. Like others who are against fireworks, Gundersen feels locals already voted to ban fireworks.
“We had a vote. And we voted to stop fireworks,” Gundersen said.
She’s not alone.
“It’s like a war zone,” said Linda Gray, another resident of south Snohomish County. “I have to tranquilize my pets. I’m surrounded by forests. I live in the wildland urban interface. And any one of the homes in my neighborhood, it gets torched, I mean, this whole area, you could go up.”
Fireworks were connected to 71 reports of fires on July 3 to 5 last year, according to a Snohomish County 911 report. No injuries connected to fireworks were noted in the report. Nationwide in 2022, fireworks killed 11 people and injured 10,200, according to a report by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Meanwhile, wildfires are a growing concern in Western Washington. Other fires connected to fireworks are, too.
“We fully support county council action to ban fireworks sales in these densely populated, high-risk areas,” South County Fire Chief Bob Eastman said in an emailed statement to The Daily Herald. “Fireworks put people at risk, property at risk and tie up emergency resources. In areas where sales are still allowed, fireworks continue to be heavily used. Ending those sales means less opportunity for fireworks use and less confusion for residents.”
Churches and other social organizations that rely on firework sales for income would need to move, if a sales ban were enacted.
“If there’s an area where sales would no longer be allowed, they would certainly have that option of finding a new location and obtaining a permit for a location in the area that does allow sales,” Mike McCrary, director of Planning Development Services, told council.
Jordan Hansen: 425-339-3046; jordan.hansen@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @jordyhansen.
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