By Rick Bella, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.
Jul. 5–First they swore me to secrecy, making me promise I’d never reveal the “undisclosed locations” they took me to. But it was well worth it.
By trading away my right to a few details, I got to see the place where illegal fireworks go to die in Oregon.
For the past couple of years, the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office, Oregon State Police, Metropolitan Explosive Disposal Unit and Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue have hauled most of the illegal fireworks they collect to a special facility for disposal.
“We are the destroyers,” said Karen Eubanks, TVF&R’s spokeswoman. “Almost everything that is gathered by police and firefighters in most of Oregon winds up with us.”
Firefighters lock the items in a big shipping container, which looks like a train car that lost its wheels, and a smaller fireproof shed, until the cache totals several hundred pounds.
Then they load them into a specially built seven-cubic-yard bin made of heat-resistant carbon steel and outfitted with a heavy-gauge mesh lid. They line the bottom of the bin with dry straw, then drop in a wooden pallet and a hot-burning flare wired to a remote detonator.
Then they light the whole thing.
“It’s impressive — and scary,” Assistant Fire Marshal Steve Forster said. “That stuff is somewhat unpredictable.”
Operations technician Jim Barclay said he waits at least a full day before opening the bin.
Oregon law limits fireworks to “safe and sane” items. There are strict limits on the amount of effect-producing chemicals the fireworks can contain and tight parameters on what the fireworks can do.
In short, they can’t explode, fly more than 1 foot into the air or move more than 6 feet along the ground.
That means all those mortars, bottle rockets, skyrockets, helicopters and Roman candles sold in Washington are illegal in Oregon. Same goes for all the firecrackers and wire-core sparklers that Native Americans sell on reservations. It goes without saying that more powerful items barred by federal law — M-80s, cherry bombs, ashcans, silver salutes and homemade explosives — are strictly off-limits.
The laws aren’t arbitrary or capricious. Last year, 283 fireworks-related fires in Oregon caused nearly $2 million in damage, according to State Fire Marshal’s Office figures.
Statistics aren’t compiled for injuries in Oregon. But nationally, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 10,000 people receive emergency medical treatment for fireworks-related injuries.
By a stroke of timing, Deputy Fire Marshal Ed Bonollo was bringing a load of illegal fireworks that he picked up from Tualatin Station 34, South Beaverton Station 66 and Rock Creek Station 64. The items were collected by police and firefighters throughout the area.
Bonollo also had a canister of gunpowder used to reload shotgun shells and old road flares that a man had turned in for disposal.
“Some of this illegal stuff was turned in by parents,” Bonollo said. “They say, ‘My kid caused a fire. Enough is enough. Here — take it.’ “
Fire officials said they’d alert me when they planned to destroy a big load of illegal items. But I might have to be blindfolded until just before they wire the detonator and push the button.
Rick Bella: 503-294-5114; [email protected]; 15495 S.W. Sequoia Parkway, Suite 190, Portland, OR 97224
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