Fireworks Ban Update

Bossier City and Shreveport officials met earlier today to discuss the fireworks situation.

Fireworks vendors have been waiting for an update... As have the kids!

And, with the heat and lack of rain, it looks like city officials have decided to continue with the fireworks ban.

Fred Sanders, Assistant to the Fire Chief of Shreveport tells us:

Today, after meeting with the Caddo-Bossier Office of Homeland Security and meteorologist from the National Weather Service, officials from the City of Shreveport and the City of Bossier City agreed to continue the ban on the sale, use and/or discharge of Consumer 1.4 g Class C fireworks through the 4th of July holiday. The decision to continue the ban on consumer fireworks was made because the unprecedented drought conditions have not changed and both entities are reluctant to risk the loss of private or public property.

Factors presented by the National Weather Service today in making the final decision to ban fireworks through July 4th included:

The National Weather Service, calling the dry conditions “dire,” saw no changes in the hot and dry conditions since the ban was initiated last week or in the foreseeable future - logging no rainfall in the Shreveport/Bossier City areas

Heat conditions to remain hot and dry in the upper 90’s and will run into 100’s today through the weekend, “Intensifying the dry and hot conditions.”

Northwest Louisiana remains in D3/D4 drought condition Northwest Louisiana already 12” below normal rainfall at the end of May has received only 10% of its normal rainfall for the month of June

Yesterday, soil temperatures 4-inches below the surface of the earth were at 100-degrees in the Shreveport/Bossier area.

With soil being so dry and temperatures being so hot, National Weather Service meteorologists said, “it gives the effect that grass/vegetation is baking from above and beneath, therefore creating an environment conducive to rapid fire spread.”

Humidity will run below 50% further drying our vegetation and brush.

Shreveport Fire Chief and Asst. CAO Brian Crawford said the objective data presented by the National Weather Service was overwhelming in supporting the continuation of the ban. “We were hoping for better news, not from just a fireworks standpoint but the area as a whole just needing significant rainfall. However, the National Weather Service made it very clear, in using statements such as, ‘dire, ground baking from underneath while the sun dries from above, the dry and hot conditions have and will only intensify leading up to the fourth, and finally that conditions have the potential to easily light up (with a spark) the vegetation and spread it rapidly,’ that conditions have and will continue to worsen and lifting the ban would impose a significant and unnecessary public safety threat to our jurisdictions,” said Crawford.