Smith County Fire Marshal urges fireworks safety

TYLER — With many professional fireworks shows being cancelled this year, many will take on personal displays over the Independence Day Weekend. Smith County Fire Marshal Jay Brooks told KTBB, “We want everyone to have fun, but we do want them to maintain safety. We want to keep people from getting hurt and have a good time. First and foremost, we never want to allow children to handle fireworks. It’s just that simple. Older kids we want to make sure there is adult supervision with them.”

Brooks went on to say, “The other thing that we see a lot of is that people are impaired by drugs or alcohol, that and fireworks just don’t mix. That is kind of a recipe for disaster. People kind of lose their inhibitions and things tend to go wrong when that happens. Also, we want to make sure we are not holding lit fireworks in our hand, you never want to point fireworks at others.” In the latest stats of the 4th of July weekend 2018, 8 people died, and 12,489 emergency rooms visits were reported, as well as numerous departments going out on Fire calls.