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Local News

July 8, 2008

Fire chiefs report quiet weekend

John Walker

With municipal July 4 festivities blasting off around Stephens County as early as Thursday and earlier, perhaps, for individuals, local first responders noted that overall it was a quiet weekend.

Duncan Fire Chief Larry Sullins said he heard from his firefighters that it was a quiet weekend for his department.

Duncan Assistant Fire Chief Darrell Meadows agreed.

“Not much happened. It was quiet, which is pretty common for Duncan.”

Marlow Fire Chief Jerome McCalvin said that his department had four minor fireworks related calls this year.

“We average two to five fireworks calls each year, so this year was pretty average,” McCalvin said.

“It was pretty quiet and a good safe weekend.”

Of the four fireworks calls his department responded to, McCalvin said one of them was a result of someone duct-taping sparklers together and throwing it in the road.

Another one was the result of a brother and sister shooting roman candles at each other.

“These were very small fires,” he said.

“We put them out quick.”

McCalvin also said that there wasn’t much damage at all.

Comanche Police Chief Mike Jones said that there were a few minor calls related to fireworks, but no citations were issued.

“Just warnings,” Jones said. “New people move in and are not aware of the law, so we had to bring them up to speed. Verbal warnings seemed to work out just fine.”

He said that the weekend seemed quiet to him.

“It’s always kinda been quiet,” Jones said. “I worked during the day and there were no calls related to fireworks then. We probably averaged between two and three calls a night, though.”

Velma Fire Chief David Bloodworth said that there was a small grass fire about four miles west of Velma that was related to fireworks.

“A family launched a rocket and it took a wrong turn and landed in some green grass,” Bloodworth said. “It burned a quarter of an acre, but we had it out within five minutes.”

He said that two trucks responded to the incident and that there were no injuries or citations issued.

“It was just an accident,” Bloodworth said.

Loco Fire Chief Glen Knutsen said that there were no calls related to fireworks in his vicinity.

During Loco’s celebration held on Thursday, volunteer firefighters were prepared just in case an accident occurred from their fireworks show.

“But because of the rain we had beforehand, everything went fine,” Knutsen said.

Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Bryant said that there were many fireworks launched all over southeastern Oklahoma.

“You could see many fireworks all over the place,” Bryant said. “There were several citations issued.”

He said that there was one person arrested in relation to setting off fireworks and then later released.

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