Drone teams in north Orange County cities helped police officers take illegal fireworks off of the streets and catch dozens of perpetrators lighting them on the Fourth of July, officials said.
Anaheim police used drones for the first time to help catch those with illegal fireworks, issuing 40 citations that were handed out to homeowners, or will be sent to them this week, Sgt. Eric Anderson said.
The department confiscated about 2,500 pounds of illegal fireworks.
Anaheim police used drones 27 times to assist over the holiday weekend on calls for illegal fireworks, with two drone operators each night based at the department’s headquarters on Harbor Boulevard.
“Overall, we’re happy with it,” Anderson said of the drone program and the results.
There were no repeat offenders this holiday season, Anderson said, adding anyone who received a citation could potentially face a $1,000 fine. Anaheim police received roughly 2,100 calls for service related to fireworks over the weekend.
An 8-year-old Anaheim girl’s death from a fireworks mishap in neighboring Buena Park was one reason the city deployed a drone program, the sergeant said.
“Obviously, it really hit home in our community and it was something we didn’t want to … see happen again,” Anderson said.
In next-door Santa Ana, police issued 183 citations for illegal fireworks during the holiday, with 107 attributed to the assistance of drones, the Santa Ana Police Department said on X.
The department seized nearly 1,300 pounds of illegal fireworks in a bust, Orange County’s largest this year, the department said.
And in Stanton, where drones were used for the first time last year to combat illegal fireworks, Mayor David Shawver said on Wednesday that responses this year for them were down, with no injuries reported.
The city did not yet have a total for the number of citations it was going to hand out to property owners, he said.
“Because there was less activity this year, they (drone operators) were really able to emphasize and get great video of the violators on a major scale,” Shawver said, as well as concentrate heavily on problem areas.
But Shawver said it was believed the number of incidents were down this year because of the fines that were put out last year. The city contracts with a third-party company that operates the drones that catch violators.
There appeared to be less noise.
“It was also one of the better Fourth of Julys as far as the seniors went,” the mayor said. “That gave me some understanding that we are having some success.”