County set to ban fireworks Thursday

Grant County Commissioners will meet in a special session Thursday to consider banning the use and/or sale of fireworks in unincorporated areas of the county.

The expected 10-minute session will start at 3:20 p.m. July 1.

County Fire Marshal Nathan Poplawski recommended in a letter to commissioners temporarily banning the sale and use of fireworks under the current extreme conditions, invoking Grant County Code 6.04.030 which allows such a move.

Poplawski said that he didn't make the recommendation lightly, and that all but two of the fire chiefs in the county were in favor of it.

At a media training session online Wednesday morning, personnel from the state’s firefighting agency, the Department of Natural Resources, said that across the state conditions are by far dryer than normally seen this time of year.

“We’re typically not this dry and this critical at this point” (in the year), said Vaughn Cork, DNR fire program manager.

The agency is highlighting “fireworks hot spots” on a conditions map used in planning and response shown to reporters.