ST. LOUIS — In St. Louis, the celebration of America’s independence comes with the risk of injury and fires caused by fireworks.
It’s as much a part of St. Louis summer as the Fourth of July.
While fire officials warn against the dangers of fireworks, they also have a new tool to keep themselves safe.
That new tool – a database of tens of thousands of vacant buildings in St. Louis – may help firefights make informed decisions about what they are facing when they pull up to a vacant building on fire in the middle of the night.
“No, fireworks are not legal in the city of St. Louis,” said St. Louis Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson.
Despite that fact, Jenkerson said firefighters nationwide can count on 20,000 July 4 fireworks-related injuries.
“I get asked every year – 'Can you describe a safe way to shoot fireworks?'” said Jenkerson. “Absolutely not. They are very dangerous and should be left to the professionals.”
Here in St. Louis, Jenkerson said around July 4, firefighters will receive double the 250 fire and EMS calls they typically receive, all because of fireworks.
“You know, the other side of that is – we’ve had a very, very dry season and the fire department is praying for a little rain here before the Fourth of July,” said Jenkerson. “Because any time it’s really dry, everybody thinks about the grass fires, weed fires, things like that. But it affects us in the city because the amount of vacant buildings we have. They become dry.”
Sitting at his desk, the firefighting tool Deputy Fire Chief Derrick Phillips uses is a computer mouse.
“Anything that’s associated with the X is a high probability of collapse and we mark those as ‘No Entry,” said Phillips, describing what was on his computer screen.
For the past year, St. Louis firefighters have been assembling a database about the structure and condition of tens of thousands of vacant buildings in the city.
Vacant buildings are structures that have presented a hazard to firefighters responding to fires.
The vacant building database has been in the works, for years, but it became a priority last year, after firefighter Benjamin Polson was killed while responding to a fire in a vacant building. Another firefighter was injured in that same incident.
“We’ve inspected just over 6,000 vacant buildings in the City of St. Louis. These are residential, not commercial. We are 96% complete," Jenkerson said.
Jenkerson says there are as many as 8,000 vacant properties in St. Louis, but it’s a number that’s always changing.
“Moderate,” said Phillips, describing what was on his computer screen.
“And the bottom is low,” he said. “Low probability of collapse.”
Jenkerson describes the details of a structure that determines a vacant building’s hazard rating.
“What’s the condition of the roof?” said Jenkerson. “What’s the condition of the tuckpointing? What’s the condition of the bricks? The back porch? What’s around the building – the fencing? Is the building overgrown with shrubs and trees? Is there anything that’s going to cause us issues when we try to put a fire out in that facility?”