Letter: Fireworks laws are not what they should be
Recently, on a Sunday, a fire broke out in Kennewick that burned for several hours, filling the sky with acrid smoke. For me, it was a bit of an eye opener. I only moved to the Tri-Cities last year, and while last year was awful for wildfires across the state, none of them had ever been so close that I could see the glow of the fire at night and the smell permeated the surrounding area.
It had never been so real until that moment. The warm, orange, glow of the fire on the smoke in the night sky was almost beautiful, until the stench of the smoke permeated my car, and it became all I could smell. The fire was believed to be started by a Roman candle — a firework. For a place that has to battle wildfires every single year when the weather gets warm, the laws on fireworks are not what they should be.
West Richland doesn’t even have restrictions on fireworks and access to fireworks is far too easy for them to be even mildly controlled. With laws like this, it’s amazing there hasn’t been serious injuries due to fires started by fireworks.
Stephanie Demetreon, Richland
This story was originally published July 22, 2017 at 8:28 PM with the headline "Letter: Fireworks laws are not what they should be."