The Ceres Police Department’s crackdown of the use of illegal fireworks resulted in 18 citations over the Fourth of July holiday period – a number that was considerably less than in years past.

The 18 individuals are faced with a $2,500 administrative fine.

During the special fireworks enforcement patrols for the evenings from July 1-4, police dispatchers fielded 642 reports for illegal fireworks to which 157 had officers dispatched.

“We were able to catch 18 violators in the act of setting off illegal fireworks,” said Ceres Police Lt. Chris Perry.

The administrative fine of $2,500 was increased from $1,000, in 2021 by the Ceres City Council.

Those cited have a chance to appeal the fine before an administrative judge but must present their case based on evidence. In years past, some have won their case but most do not prevail.

In 2019 the Ceres Police Department issued 53 citations, 39 in 2020, 34 in 2021 and 15 in 2020.

“This number doesn’t excite me,” said Police Chief Rick Collins, who noted that violators are being more “crafty” in the way go about setting off mortars and such. “It was a busy night for our guys out there and they did the best they could,” said Collins.

He said his officers don’t typically issue citations unless “we have a strong chance of the citation being upheld in the appeal process.”

On the Fourth of July Ceres Police had four extra officers devoted to looking for violators in addition to the nine officers already on the shift.

By contrast, Modesto Police issued 45 citations, 30 of which were made through observations made by its new fixed wing aircraft with a sophisticated infrared video camera system. Ceres has no such resource.

Turlock issued 28 citations for illegal fireworks.

Ceres residents complained on social media that the loud explosions and aerial displays were out of hand. “It was like a war zone here,” wrote Renee Linares.

Libby Pata left this tongue-in-cheek comment about what she observed all night long: “Hats off to the residents of Ceres that did their part to fight the war in Ukraine from their front yards. You gave it your all with the 5-hour aerial assault and mortar attacks.”

July 4 presented a busy time for firefighters with Modesto Fire Department, which provides fire service to Ceres by contract with the city.

“It was very, very busy,” said Ken Wise, a chief with Modesto Fire Department. “We had several grass fires. We responded to several structure fires but they ended up being brush or grass fires but we were running from call to call to call.”

One of the reported structure fires – one at 1400 Whitmore Avenue – ended up not being anything significant, said Wise.

Altogether Modesto Fire responded to 274 calls for the 24 hours between 7 a.m. on July 4 and 7 a.m. on July 5 in Modesto, Ceres, Salida and Oakdale. That included 65 fires, eight structure fires, 41 vegetation fires and 16 trash fires. Most of the fires, which ignited backyards, vacant fields, fences, trees and trash cans, were in areas where there was a heavy incidence of aerial fireworks, which are illegal in California.

Wise noted that in 2019 Ceres Fire did team up with Ceres Police in an effort to catch and cite persons setting off illegal fireworks. But generally fire personnel don’t issue citations.

“We can cite but we generally don’t.”

The problem, he explained, is that firefighters don’t carry weapons and approaching groups of people who have been drinking all day “could make a bad situation worse.”

“They were everywhere,” said Wise. “I drove around trying to make a presence but it was everywhere. And at midnight I was just as steady as it was at 9:30.”

Turlock experienced eight grass fires, three trash fires, a vehicle fire, and one structure fire. The largest fire came in at approximately 1:15 a.m. July 5, when all Turlock Fire units responded to a fire in a house under construction in the 800 block of N. Berkeley Avenue.