Drones help Sacramento firefighters issue 70 illegal fireworks citations

Sacramento Fire Department’s first citywide drone deployment on the Fourth of July produced 70 illegal fireworks citations and about $300,000 in fines, with the largest single penalty reaching $100,000 for a home in Del Paso Heights. The drones and certified operators let firefighters monitor the city from above and identify properties by reading address numbers.

In the Del Paso Heights case, crews watched a gathering, counted numerous illegal fireworks with the drone and later saw people loading fireworks from a U-Haul trailer that caught fire at some point. Capt. Justin Sylvia put the department’s unmanned drones at enough battery life for about 35 to 40 minutes each, and crews kept swapping them so one could remain overhead for more than an hour during the display. Sacramento’s fine schedule starts at $1,000 for a first device, $2,500 for a second and $5,000 for each device after that, with penalties rising to $10,000 per device when fireworks are used near a school, park or other critical infrastructure.

Sacramento County received about 600 complaints about illegal fireworks over the holiday weekend, and the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District used drones, sheriff’s deputies’ video surveillance and resident cellphone submissions to review the calls. The countywide review could take up to two months, and final enforcement totals were still pending. Cosumnes Fire crews responded to 61 incidents in the 24 hours between 7 a.m. July 4 and 7 a.m. July 5, including 12 fires, and investigators identified fireworks as the cause of eight of them.

The state’s fireworks law dates to 1938. Sacramento Fire planned to add two more drones, bringing its fleet to four unmanned aircraft.