FAIRHOPE – Fireworks from the Fairhope Pier will resume July 4, but, as in many communities around the country, one part of that tradition has changed, city officials said.
In the past, the Fairhope Volunteer Fire Department has conducted the display. During the COVID-19 restrictions of the last year, firefighters were not able to maintain their certification needed to work with fireworks. The Fairhope City Council voted April 26 to hire J&M Displays to set off the fireworks.
Mayor Sherry Sullivan said new regulations have affected Fairhope’s ability to conduct the event on its own.
“There’s been a lot of changes in the laws concerning fireworks and liability with insurance carriers and stuff and we really, to be honest, do not have the firemen who are interested in being certified any longer,” Sullivan said. “We also have some issues with the bunker that we currently have at the fire station. We’re going to have to revisit that because there’s a subdivision pushing in against the fire station that’s going to prevent that bunker from housing fireworks because of the distance to the homes. There’s a lot of obstacles right now.”
Paige Crawford, director of community development, said few cities will be able to conduct displays as regulations increase.
“After speaking to a lot of different fireworks display companies, this is kind of a dying art,” Crawford said. “Most places, with the large liability to carry, to deliver, to shoot, to maintain a secure site, they say, basically, that there are so few licensed crews and so many folks who are wanting to do shows for the Fourth of July on the Fourth of July, they’re booking 12 months out.”
Crawford said state Fire Marshal’s Office regulations enacted in 2019 would require firefighters to receive 16 hours of training and take part in six fireworks displays before they could be certified to put on a display on their own. Fairhope has two fireworks displays a year, so firefighters would require three years to be certified, she said.
“We really don’t have anybody is pursuing that certification,” she said.
The city will pay J&M Displays $32,000 to put on the July 4 fireworks display. Council President Jack Burrell said that total is about $17,000 more than the cost would be if city firefighters set off the fireworks.
Burrell said that in addition to the extra costs, having Fairhope firefighters put on the display has been a city tradition.
“We’ve always done it that way,” Burrell said. “Now, I keep hearing over the last several years, we talked to everybody else, and this is how they do it. I used to hear this is how Fairhope does it. Now I hear this is how everybody else does it and I like to hear this is how Fairhope does it.”
During the COVID-19 outbreak, the city canceled fireworks on July 4, 2020 and Jan. 1, 2021. Sullivan said she wanted to resume the displays and asked Crawford to find a company to set off the fireworks.
“I kind of put some pressure on her and told her this is my first year as mayor we have to have fireworks because it took a little bit to find someone who would even shoot them on the Fourth of July,” Sullivan said.
