Illegal use of fireworks and explosives kept regional fire and police departments and emergency rooms busy on the Fourth of July, despite officials’ safety campaigns that included threats of heavy fines and enforcement operations that confiscated literally tons of fireworks. Authorities responded to hundreds of reports of illegal fireworks and wrote scores of citations. Firefighters also rushed to blazes on hillsides, in homes and at commercial buildings; the largest, in the Lake Mathews area, charred about 200 acres, while another in Jurupa Valley burned a barn and killed dozens of chickens and lambs as well as two dogs. A fire attributed to fireworks damaged a 115-year-old house in Corona. In Yucca Valley, illegal fireworks caused a small brush fire. In San Bernardino, an 8-year-old boy had one hand blown off and surgeons were trying to save his other hand when four boys lit off a homemade firework; two of the three other boys also were hospitalized. The stepfather of one of the boys could face child-endangerment charges, police said. “In regard to the number of fires and injuries directly related to fireworks, this was one of the more destructive years in recent memory,” said Eric Sherwin, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department.
San Bernardino County firefighters responded to 53 vegetation fires between 4 and 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. Sherwin said medics treated people—mostly children—for burns and hand and eye injuries