BOISE — Those late-night Fourth of July fireworks made for a busy July 5th morning for fire crews.
Boise Fire responded to 13 calls between July third and fifth. Two of those fires were determined to be caused by fireworks, according to officials.
Boise wasn't the only fire department taking calls and assessing the damage. Meridian also responded to a handful of calls.
"In Meridian, we had probably 4 to 5 just small grass fires just behind fences and stuff," said Deputy Chief of Meridian Fire Department Joe Bongiorno.
Meridian Fire responded to one somewhat more significant fire around midnight, but mainly it was smaller-scale brush fires that consumed their night. However, the fire team responded to a structure fire around 1:30 in the morning.
"The people had taken their fireworks that they'd used and they just put them in a plastic bucket and put it in a plastic bucket and put it on the front porch next to the post; it was holding up the corner of the porch," said Bongiorno,
"Unfortunately, the bucket caught fire and lit the column on fire, and the fire proceeded up into the attic space of their house."
Luckily, a neighbor was awake. They saw the flames and alerted the people next door.
"Everybody was able to get out safely, so our crews got there pretty quickly and were able to knock the fire down, but the people will be out of their house for quite a while," said Bongiorno.
Bongiorno says it was still a relatively quiet Fourth of July night.
"Nothing out of the ordinary, there was still some medical calls that happened at the same time," said Bongiorno.
The obvious takeaway is don't uses illegal fireworks. If you live in Meridian, you'll have to save whatever fireworks you have leftover until next year.
"Unfortunately, since it's July 5th, it's not legal to shoot them off; you're only allowed to shoot fireworks off in meridian during the sales period, which ended last night at midnight," said Bongiorno.
In 2019, fire officials say that between July 3rd and 5th, Boise Fire was called out to 18 fires, three of which were determined to be caused by fireworks.
