Crews responded to 73 fires within Sacramento city limits on July 4 night

Firefighters spent an exhausting Fourth of July responding to dozens of calls across the Sacramento region, as legal and illegal fireworks boomed through the night Thursday.

Sacramento Fire Department spokesman Capt. Keith Wade said crews responded to 73 fire-related calls to dispatch, all within city limits, between 7 p.m. Thursday and 1 a.m. Friday.

This encompassed “every sort of fire you can think of,” Wade said. “Grass fire, tree fire, house fire, car fire, garbage fire, dumpster fire.”

Wade, who worked the holiday last year and has worked many Fourth of July shifts, also called it a “daunting task,” even for Sacramento’s fully staffed fire department.

“My personal opinion is that the fire department was very busy last night and busier than last year,” Wade told The Bee on Friday morning. Wade had previously told The Bee on July 5, 2018, that the prior night was one of the worst he’d ever seen in terms of fire call volume and illegal fireworks.

Wade said he spent much of the night stationed in south Sacramento, and that illegal firework activity is most frequent there and in north Sacramento.

“Downtown is relatively quiet,” he said.

Wade said he rode with Sacramento Fire Chief Gary Loesch at one point. Loesch, who assumed the position in 2018 after 30 years in Philadelphia, told Wade he was “surprised” by the amount of illegal fireworks in Sacramento.

Illegal fireworks are relatively easy to classify -anything that goes up into the sky and isn’t part of an officially sanctioned show - and Wade said he observed

“huge amounts” of the illegal displays Thursday night throughout the city.

However, Wade pointed out that fireworks-related incidents are not typically labeled by whether the fireworks that caused them are legal or illegal. With so much activity in one night, it’s a tough fact to prove.