{"id":337729,"date":"2026-06-16T00:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T00:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/337729\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T00:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T00:24:13","slug":"el-paso-county-weighs-fireworks-ban-ahead-of-fourth-of-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/337729\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso County weighs fireworks ban ahead of Fourth of July"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) &#8212; &#8220;We&#8217;re gonna be patrolling the areas, patrolling the county to make sure people are staying away from fireworks tents. That&#8217;s one of our biggest concerns that pop them popping firecrackers too close to the stands,&#8221; Sam Villarreal told ABC-7 during an interview. <\/p>\n<p>Sam is with El Paso County Emergency Services District No. 1 in Horizon City and says bottle rockets and missiles with fins are especially hazardous.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Once they actually go up in the air, pop, it&#8217;s there&#8217;s actually a stick attached to them. A longer stick. And that&#8217;s what actually catches fire. And the embers land in the desert, catch brush. And that&#8217;s what usually catches fire,&#8221; said Sam. <\/p>\n<p>On Monday, county commissioners discussed the possibility of banning bottle rockets and missiles with fins \u2014 the two aerial fireworks seen as the highest wildfire risk during dry conditions.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re expected to make a decision on whether to ban them later.<\/p>\n<p>The ban would run through July 4th, but sparklers and fountains would still be allowed.<br \/>County commissioners also brought up a new law.<\/p>\n<p>It extends fireworks sales until midnight on July 5th, this year only, for America&#8217;s 250th birthday.<\/p>\n<p>Sam says many firework vendors end up not even buying the fireworks that could be banned, in case they are.<\/p>\n<p>For now, cooler weather is what keeps this ban from reaching approval.<\/p>\n<p>Jimmy Nevarez, owner of Fireworks Pyro, says the ban would only affect a small portion of his supply.<\/p>\n<p>Jimmy says if El Pasoans want to enjoy their fireworks, they need to be safe and show restraint with them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Courteous. Be courteous to your neighbors because next year, if it is dry, then the county commission will definitely keep that in mind and there will be more restrictions to follow,&#8221; said Jimmy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) &#8212; &#8220;We&#8217;re gonna be patrolling the areas, patrolling the county to make sure people&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-337729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}