Fire officials in Surrey and Vancouver reported fewer fireworks-related incidents this Halloween, citing stiffer penalties, bans and weather in the regions as possible reasons.
Surrey Fire Service Chief Larry Thomas said there were four or five fireworks-related fires in the city on Thursday, down from about 20 on Halloween last year.
He attributed the decrease to a couple of factors.
“Weather, I would think definitely would play a factor and all the attention on the increased fines hopefully had an influence on that as well to keep the complaints and actual fires down,” Thomas told CBC News.
Surrey doubled fines for fireworks bylaw violations ahead of Halloween and Diwali this year, with a municipal ticket now costing someone as much as $1,000.
Beyond actual fires, Thomas said the city received about 350 complaints on Thursday, lower than the around 500 reported last year.
The City of Surrey has just approved an increase in fines related to the sale and use of fireworks ahead of the holidays. As Rafferty Baker reports, the mayor says it’s in response to the significant surge in complaints related to fireworks around this time of year.
Vancouver Fire Rescue Services said Friday that a ban on the sale and use of consumer fireworks, which took effect in 2021, is working.
The service said there were 43 fires in Vancouver on Halloween night this year and last year. Seven of those were related to fireworks and caused damages of $225,000 in 2023 and $3,000 this year.
That’s a drop from the two years prior to the ban, when the fire service says it responded to 58 fires on Halloween, 25 of which were directly related to fireworks and caused $1.3 million in damage.
Still, some residents of Downtown Vancouver reported plenty of noise late into Thursday night.
“Just non-stop, but I guess that’s kind of what you come to expect,” downtown resident Ian Oswald told CBC News Friday.
Vancouver police said there were no incidents of note on Halloween night.
Police said someone set off a firecracker by the gym entrance of East Vancouver’s David Thompson Secondary Thursday morning, hitting two students who were passing by.
One student was taken to hospital for a facial injury and another suffered temporary hearing loss. Police said they are searching for a suspect, who may or may not be a student at the school.