Published: July 08, 2009 10:34 am      

Cleburne fire marshal: average year for illegal fireworks

Cleburne Fire Marshal Bill Wright called this Fourth of July weekend a “pretty quiet year.”

But Wright confiscated plenty of illegal fireworks and issued about 17 citations.

“It was an average year,” Wright said. “We didn’t get a lot of calls, but we still found people with fireworks. A lot of what we got were out-of-town people who thought they could shoot them off out here around the lake. Some of them said fireworks are illegal were they live, and they didn’t know they weren’t legal out here. Now they know.”

Using or possessing fireworks in Cleburne city limits, or the 5,000-foot radius buffering the city is illegal, Wright said.

The confiscated fireworks will be sent off to be destroyed, he said.

Fireworks caused at least one fire over the weekend, according to CFD reports. Firefighters extinguished a small grass fire at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday on a vacant lot near Country Club and Nolan River roads. Firefighters found a “small part of a firework” at the scene, according to reports.

— Matt Smith