A Surrey resident is speaking up about fireworks after an early Saturday-morning fire threatened her home.
Lorna Cherry said people illegally set off fireworks in her Newton neighbourhood, near 82 Avenue and King George Boulevard, after hours all the time, which is likely what woke her up Saturday (Feb. 21) just before 1 a.m.
”I sat straight up in bed … then I turned and I looked out (to) my left and that’s where my bathroom window was, and my bathroom was glowing red,” she recalled. “So I opened up the window and the fire was five feet away from me.”
The cedar hedge close to her home’s backyard was on fire. Cherry says she started screaming for her son to wake up and get the dogs — she has three — into the car, and drove the car to visitor’s parking, away from the flames.
By the time she got back, her son was spraying the cedar hedge and the shed in the backyard, with trees 20 to 30 feet high by Cherry’s description, and she ran to alert their neighbours to the fire.
“We were all in our pyjamas … my shed is literally a foot or 18 inches away from the trees (on fire). It was terrifying,” Cherry said. “It was way too close.”
Cherry said she has called Surrey’s bylaw department to report the ongoing fireworks that are lit, usually between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., in their Newton neighbourhood on numerous occasions, but that it has never had any real effects or results.
“(The fireworks) start at 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m. in the morning (and) they go for a couple hours … they’re all over. And I phone the city bylaws and I complain, but they say, ‘By the time we get there, they’ll be gone anyways.’”
Surrey Fire Service confirmed four firefighters responded to extinguish a cedar hedge on fire in Cherry’s neighbourhood at approximately 1 a.m. Saturday morning but didn’t have information on the cause of the blaze.
A subsequent post in a social media group stated “This is what fireworks do when you light them beside houses,” with a photo of a man with a garden hose, with a tall cedar hedge on fire behind him, sparks and embers flying, with the orange blaze lighting up the night sky.
“We almost lost the house, neighbours almost lost their house,” the post said.
Cherry is fairly certain what caused the fire.
“I found the fireworks containers in the back of my yard (the next) morning, and my next-door neighbor on the other side, she also found firework casings in her backyard,” Cherry said. “I think there has to be stricter laws regarding fireworks … I think there be should be stricter punishments (for) people shooting off fireworks. Because it’s not just dangerous — there are people that live in my complex … some of these people are confined to a wheelchair,” Cherry said, noting it would be more difficult for those with mobility issues to get out of a burning house quickly.
“It’s a wake-up call. Something’s got to be done about it. Stricter regulations, stiffer penalties, jail time — whatever it takes. This is just becoming totally unacceptable.”
The City of Surrey allows fireworks only to people who have applied for, and been granted, a permit by Surrey Fire Services’ Fire Prevention Branch.
Those who set off fireworks illegally face a minimum $400, maximum $50,000 fine under the fireworks bylaw, as well as a $1,000 municipal ticket information fine and a $450 bylaw enforcement notice sign, according to the city’s website.
“It’s not just fun and games, it’s people’s lives at stake … people’s homes are at stake,” Cherry said.
”I just hope that this doesn’t happen to somebody else, because it could have been a whole lot worse.”