Holiday Sales of Fireworks Spark Fears About Safety : Fillmore: Booths open in the county’s only city to allow their use, but some worry the wares aren’t ‘safe and sane’ enough.

As brush fires burned in several parts of Southern California, fireworks went on sale Thursday in Fillmore, the only city in Ventura County that allows them.

County firefighters criticized the city for allowing the sale of so-called “safe-and-sane” fireworks by nonprofit groups, which happens at 19 booths lining California 126.

“Fillmore is providing the means for people to break the law and endanger life and property,” Deputy Chief Bob Holaway said.

Roger Campbell, a city councilman who also serves as Fillmore’s assistant fire chief, said he doesn’t think the safe-and-sane fireworks start fires.

“I love fireworks as an assistant fire chief, as a volunteer firefighter and as a councilman,” Campbell said. “It’s fun. It’s patriotic. It’s something people feel they have a right to do.”

City Councilwoman Delores Day said that requests to prohibit fireworks sales have been made by people including George Campbell, Roger’s father and the city’s former fire chief, and have been repeatedly rejected.

“It’s always been a unanimous decision to go and sell them,” Day said. “And the county has always objected to it.”

Some local service clubs said they hope the city never bans fireworks sales.

Fireworks generate between $10,000 and $40,000 for each organization. Volunteers who staff the booths said the income supports charity work, special events and scholarships.

Fillmore insurance agent Susan Bachman said she takes a week off each year to work at the Rotary Club’s booth.

“It’s one of our major fund-raisers,” Bachman said. “We try a lot of fund-raisers, but the fireworks is always a big draw.”

The widening of the highway to four lanes and a 50% increase in the number of booths is expected to attract thousands more buyers, most of whom will not return on the Fourth of July, fire officials said.

The county Fire Department, which provides fire protection for six cities and the unincorporated areas of the county, would like a ban on fireworks sales countywide. It is powerless to impose one in Fillmore, where the volunteer Fire Department sanctions the sales, county Fire Marshal Richard Wilson said.

County firefighters last year battled a number of brush fires caused by fireworks labeled by the fireworks industry as safe and sane, Wilson said.

“Compared to the atom bomb, I guess they’re safe and sane,” he said.

County figures say fireworks triggered 29 fires between June 17 and July 17 last year. Fourteen were caused by safe-and-sane brands, 11 by illegal fireworks not sold in Fillmore. In all, fireworks caused an estimated $119,000 in damage and one reported injury.

“We’re already burning in Southern California a lot of acreage very early,” Wilson said. “Fireworks is just another source of ignition.”

The use of fireworks anywhere in the county except for Fillmore is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $500 fine, said Sgt. Chris Godfrey of the Fillmore sheriff’s station.

But buyers said Thursday they don’t plan to stay in town to set off their fireworks.

Gary Olivas, 23, a former Simi Valley resident who now lives in Canoga Park, said he drove to Fillmore to buy fireworks because “the kids dig them.”

He said he plans to ignore Fillmore’s annual fireworks show and have his own fireworks display at home, where it is illegal.

“They’re perfectly safe,” Olivas said. “I’m not going to come back to shoot them here.”

At a booth run by the First Assembly of God, one youth who asked not to be identified asked whether the fireworks he bought are legal in Santa Barbara County, where he lives.

Told they are not, he shrugged. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’ll just have to break the law.”

Wilson said other Ventura County cities have been asked by service groups to allow fireworks but refused when firefighters objected.

Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton said the hillsides around Simi Valley are bare and vulnerable to fast-moving wildfires. That was the chief reason why the City Council seven years ago prohibited fireworks sales, Stratton said.

“Selling fireworks in town is somewhat akin to throwing gasoline on an open flame,” Stratton said. “It’s just asking for trouble.”