'Hot Zone Map' Allows Fort Collins Residents To Report & Monitor Illegal Fireworks
FORT COLLINS, Colo (CBS4) - In an effort to combat illegal fireworks usage during the Fourth of July weekend in Northern Colorado, and to alleviate pressures on the 911 dispatch system, Fort Collins Police Services activated a live map which allows residents to report hot zones for illegal fireworks. The website, operated through the department's website, serves as an alternative reporting method which also allows officers to monitor live reports of illegal fireworks usage with a mapped out platform.
The fireworks map, which is fully-reliant on participation from the community, allows officers on duty to focus their patrols in the areas where residents are experiencing high levels of illegal firework usage.
The City of Fort Collins banned all fireworks, including those that stay on the ground.
"What is unique with our department is we have a website," said Lt. Kell Weaver of Fort Collins Police Services. "The officers can actually see the map. Where there are fireworks calls, it is like a hot zone."
The map, which is accessible by the general public as well, is color coded. The first report in a neighborhood of illegal fireworks turns the community blue. From there, as more reports come in, the colors switch to yellow and red. The darker the red and yellow, or the larger the area of color, indicate more reports of fireworks from community members online.
"That is the hot zone where all activity is being conducted," Weaver told CBS4's Dillon Thomas.
Some agencies rely on a phone hotline to report illegal fireworks, while others ask community members to take photographs of illegal fireworks to report.
Fort Collins Police chose to go with the online map as a way to encourage proactive policing by their officers. While dispatch will still answer calls to 911, reporting concerns to the hot zone map encourages the officers to take their patrols to those zones.
If an officer sees a specific neighborhood with more reports, they will spend more of their time throughout their shift driving through that specific neighborhood. Weaver said, often times, officers responding to 911 calls reporting illegal fireworks end up arriving on scene after the crime was committed. By patrolling hot zones on the map, officers are more likely to make contact with those in the act.
Officers rarely issue citations to those using fireworks that stay on the ground. Instead, they prefer to have a conversation with those using the fireworks about the law and the dangers of fireworks.
"Can you pass the word along as much as possible? We don't want to be writing tickets to people. It is $1,000 fine for any fireworks, not just the ones that leave the ground," an officer told a group of residents using illegal fireworks.
Weaver said officers will often circle back to make sure those who were contacted were compliant, adding citations were considered a last-resort in most cases.
