To the editor:
Sunday evening’s fire south of Waldport caused by fireworks rekindled memories of the night of July 2, 2022, when aerial fireworks exploded over the beach a block from my home in the Bayshore community north of Waldport. A few minutes later, fire erupted behind a nearby house on Oceania Drive. I hurried to alert the young couple staying next door to the fire and saw that they had awakened their children and were evacuating in terror.
Fortunately, there was no wind that night, and our local fire departments were able to extinguish the fire, with extensive damage to the Oceania Drive house but without damage to other properties and with no injuries or loss of life.
After reading in a July 3, 2022, YachatsNews article that the Bayshore fire was believed caused by improperly disposed fireworks, I obtained the Oregon State Police Fire Marshal’s investigative report, which determined, based on evidence at the fire scene and the Oceania Drive homeowner’s own admissions, that the fire was caused by the homeowner’s improper disposal of spent illegal aerial fireworks they had purchased in Idaho to shoot off at their vacation home in Bayshore.
Based on the fire marshal’s report, I organized some neighbors who, like me, had been endangered by the fire, and we filed a complaint with our Bayshore Homeowners Association. Our HOA fined the Oceania Drive homeowners $500, the highest fine possible at that time, and instituted a new fine of $2,500 for the use of fireworks in Bayshore.
I had naturally assumed that the state Fire Marshal enforced state fireworks regulations, but after seeing nothing in the Oregon State Police activity logs, I wrote to the fire marshal asking them to cite and fine the Oceania Drive homeowners. A few months later, I received a letter from the Fire Marshal’s office, declining to take any enforcement action and stating “enforcement tasks are best left to local law enforcement agencies, who are better located and equipped to address local violations.”
It didn’t seem right that the State Fire Marshal spent our taxpayer dollars preparing detailed investigative reports (36 pages and 89 photos in this instance) but then simply passed the buck to local authorities, so I wrote to Rep. David Gomberg, asking him to urge the State Fire Marshal to enforce state fireworks regulations. Two months later, I received a response from Gomberg’s office, declining to take any action on my request and stating “logistically, these
[enforcement] decisions are often best left to local law enforcement.”
Our rural, mostly volunteer Seal Rock Fire Department isn’t a law enforcement agency and doesn’t have the resources to enforce state fireworks regulations. Here in unincorporated Lincoln County, that left the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office to whom I then sent a copy of the Fire Marshal’s report and asked them to enforce the state fireworks regulations. Sheriff’s deputies had responded to the July 2 fire but had apparently not taken any action other than preparing a report. However in early May, the sheriff’s office forwarded my request to the Lincoln County District Attorney’s office for consideration of charges.
I also wrote to District Attorney Lanee Danforth, explaining that the state authorities had declined to cite and fine the Oceania Drive homeowners and asking her office to consider doing so. I didn’t hear back from the DA’s office, so I called them last week and was told that they are short staffed and that my request for consideration of charges was under review.
A year after the fire, the Oceania Drive home has been rebuilt and looks better than before the fire. As the Disaster Master crew chief told me, “Insurance covers stupidity.”
A year after the fire, the only “enforcement” that has occurred has been by my Bayshore HOA’s oft-maligned unpaid volunteer Planning Committee and board. Fireworks fires like yesterday, and like the Bayshore fire a year ago, will keep happening, increasing in severity with climate change, until our government enforcement agencies and politicians — not just our homeowners associations — step up to the plate and actually do something to enforce the fireworks laws and protect our communities.
Had there been proper enforcement by the state after the Bayshore fire, instead of simply passing the buck to less equipped local authorities, perhaps Sunday’s fire might not have occurred.
— Jon French, Bayshore/Waldport