By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor
The City of Gallup and McKinley County will likely have to cancel their holiday fireworks this year as extreme weather persists.
Gallup Fire Chief Jon Pairett kicked off the process May 26 when he asked the Gallup City Council to approve a proclamation declaring extreme or severe drought conditions. Under current rules, that proclamation expires around June 26. Because it restricts local fireworks, the declaration directly shapes how Gallup residents will celebrate the Fourth of July.
Timing is everything in this decision. According to the New Mexico Fireworks Licensing and Safety Act, the city must issue any restrictive proclamation at least 20 days before a firework-selling holiday. For the Fourth of July, vendors can legally sell fireworks from June 20 through July 6.
Because of that tight window, Pairett returned to the council June 9 to extend the drought proclamation and provide an update on the county’s worsening conditions.
During his presentation, Pairett compared data from May 14 against newer metrics from May 28. He pulled these numbers from the Drought Monitor, a tool that the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publish jointly.
The data revealed a rapid decline.
In the May 26 report, an extreme drought (D3) zone covered only a small portion of McKinley County, while the majority of it was in a severe drought (D2) zone. By May 28, however, the D3 zone engulfed a majority of the county. The latest update, published June 18, shows that those harsh conditions remain basically unchanged.
While Pairett noted that the National Weather Service predicts near-to-above-normal rainfall for the upcoming monsoon season, Gallup has yet to see a single drop of rain in June.
HOW THIS AFFECTS FIREWORKS
Because the extreme drought is sticking around, Pairett urged the council to extend the city’s firework restrictions.
However, a local ban cannot legally cover every product. Families can still buy and use sparklers and smaller novelty items that stay close to the ground during the holiday weekend. The restriction targets unpredictable, high-flying pyrotechnics. The New Mexico State Fire Marshal Fireworks Ordinance specifically bans three types of fireworks: stick-type rockets with small tubes and short lengths, and any public fireworks that produce a loud boom using more than 130 milligrams of explosive material.
“What they’re trying to do is prevent these fireworks that have unknown trajectory from being used,” Pairett explained during a previous city council meeting in which a fireworks ban was put in place.
To ensure compliance, Pairett and the Gallup Fire Department have already aligned with local vendors—both the year-round business and the pop-up stands traveling in for the holiday.
“I can tell citizens of Gallup if they buy fireworks from a vendor inside city limits, they are legal to use,” Pairett said. “It may not make sense that they can be used, but they are legal to use.”
Before the council voted, Mayor Marc DePauli pointed out another invisible threat that intensifies wildfire risks: the wind.
“One of the big items that these charts don’t show you is the wind, they’re mainly based on precipitation,” he said. “But they don’t predict wind, and it seems like it’s windier than it’s been at least in the last couple years, so there’s even more reason to support the proclamation.”
Fortunately for local emergency crews, the McKinley County Commission extended its own drought proclamation earlier that same day. Pairett noted that a unified front makes enforcement much easier for his department.
“It actually works out for us because if we restricted fireworks in the city and the county didn’t, people would just go buy them in the county,” Pairett said. “So it works out great if we both do that.”
With the county already on board, the city council voted unanimously to extend the extreme drought proclamation.
