Officials: 1,500 lbs. fireworks seized July Fourth effort likely beat last year

State fire investigators said Friday that they had seized 1,500 pounds of fireworks over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, the first year they’ve compiled data on their seizures.

Fireworks ranging from small firecrackers to larger M-80s that can pack a punch equivalent to a quarter stick of dynamite were seized all over the state, Assistant State Fire Marshal Joseph Thomas said Friday. Final details of the seizures were compiled earlier this week.

Although officials didn’t measure seizures last year, Thomas said he suspects the figure equals or even exceeds last year’s take.

“We have so much, the variety is so much that it’s going to be beyond the capabilities of our smaller [disposal] unit,” Thomas said.

The State Fire Marshal’s Office can destroy fireworks in smaller amounts – roughly 20 to 50 pounds – using a mobile disposal unit.

Their Fourth of July seizures, however, go well beyond that, and authorities plan on using the Maine State Police bomb squad for a mass disposal in the near future.

Until then, the fireworks are being stored in a secured, walk-in steel explosives magazine, Thomas said.

Warnings and summonses were issued over the holiday weekend, but that information had not been compiled, Thomas said.

The state official said he had heard of only one minor accident in which someone injured their hand, although he said likely there were more incidents.

About 15 people from the State Fire Marshal’s Office, all available personnel, worked the holiday weekend, looking for illegal fireworks “from one end of the state to the other and side to side,” Thomas said.

The beaches in York County were patrolled, but Thomas wasn’t able to say whether any one region in the state had more seizures than other areas.

Most of the fireworks were suspected to have been purchased in New Hampshire where they are still legal, and brought into Maine by residents and tourists.

In the past, state fire investigators have run intervention stings during which they have watched Mainers buying fireworks in New Hampshire and stopped them when they returned to the state.

Thomas wouldn’t say whether that was done this year, except to say “our presence was known all around.”