DENVER — While illegal 4th of July fireworks exploded across the metro area on Saturday and Sunday, the number of reports made to Denver Police about them dropped to the lowest level in years.
The Denver Police Department (DPD) provided numbers on Monday for fireworks calls of service that showed a total of 442 calls were received over three nights: 89 on Friday, 139 on Saturday, and 214 on Sunday.
That three-day total is about half the number of calls DPD received on July 4 alone in 2020 (856 calls), when the COVID-19 pandemic had forced the cancellation of fireworks shows across the state.
In fact, the calls to DPD this year between July 2 and 4 dropped to their lowest number in the past five years, according to DPD data.
Denver fireworks calls for service, July 2-4:
- 2017: 1,571
- 2018: 1,311
- 2019: 724
- 2020: 1,540
- 2021: 442
Between June 15 and July 4 this year, DPD received 1,054 calls for service on fireworks, the numbers show.
A DPD spokesman defined calls for service as calls that were radioed out to officers. Some of the callers did not want an officer to respond to their location. DPD did not yet have available the number of citations issued for fireworks violations, the spokesman said.
In Colorado, any type of firework that leaves the ground is illegal. In the City of Denver, if you have to "light or ignite," it's illegal, and penalties for violations are up to $999 in fines and/or court costs and up to a year in jail.
9NEWS also reached out to other police and fire agencies in the metro area about their calls of service and has not received those numbers yet.
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