Fireworks have been a hot topic after County Commissioners decided not to ban the sale of fireworks for Fourth of July, but today the Sounty Judge along with Commissioners agreed to sign an emergency declaration to partially ban certain fireworks for the holiday.

Despite recent warm and dry weather condition County Commissioners waited to ban fireworks; now after days of triple digit temperatures they are calling it an emergency.

"We are well above that now and conditions have worsened since we were able to do that."

The emergency declaration will last two and a half days, it will partially ban the sale of fireworks in the county.

Commissioners and firework vendors came to an agreement.

"Vendors are going to be pulling all of the aerial fireworks and that includes everything that goes up in the sky, including roman candles."

This partial ban has sparked fireworks of its own.

Laredo's fire chief says it's not enough.

"I’m disappointed in the decision made by Commissioners Court and our County Judge in reference to this issue."

The chief has been pleading with Commissioners to take the weather conditions under consideration, and ban all fireworks for Fourth of July.

Chief Steve Landin says this is not a political matter but a safety issue.

"We need to do everything we can to prevent emergencies from happening and not look at it like am I going to hurt a business or not."

Commissioners say they stand by their decision to ban only aerial fireworks.

"Because really those are the ones we don't have control over. Because you can fire them in one area and those are problematic."

"Dry weather, lack of rainfall in rural areas of the community, why add potential for a problem."


The emergency declaration will only last 60 hours or two and a half days.

It will ban the sale of all aerial fireworks including roman candles.

The fire department wants the community to take the dry weather conditions into consideration before sparking fireworks.

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