ALBUQUERQUE – Gov. Susana Martinez on Wednesday declared a state of emergency in New Mexico regarding the use of fireworks, saying conditions across the state are ripe for another devastating wildfire.
The governor, at a news conference in Los Alamos, renewed her plea for New Mexicans to refrain from buying and using fireworks as the Fourth of July holiday approaches and as dry conditions persist throughout the summer.
She has made the same plea at each one of her public appearances over the last several days.
“I am asking New Mexicans please do not purchase any fireworks. Do not burn any fireworks. Do not use any fireworks this season,” she said, urging residents to only go to organized fireworks shows in their communities.
State law does not allow the governor to impose an across-the-board ban of fireworks by executive order, but Martinez has said her administration exercised its full authority to ban the use of all fireworks on state and private wild lands on April 22.
Several municipal and county governments have enacted their own bans and restrictions on the sale of certain types of fireworks, and national forests around the state have banned fireworks as part of restrictions they have enacted in recent weeks.
Still, fireworks are permitted in some areas of the state.
As part of the governor’s emergency declaration, she has instructed the Department of Public Safety to increase staffing of officers and coordination with local law enforcement agencies to enforce all statewide and local fireworks bans or restrictions.
So far this year, the governor said there have been more than 800 reported fire starts around the state and nearly 478,000 acres have been scorched. Since last July, more than 1,000 fires have burned across nearly 1,114 square miles of the state.
“We cannot afford to continue to have fires like we’re experiencing now. So make this a safe holiday. Please do not use fireworks,” Martinez said.
In Silver City, a group of residents protested one business that allowed a fireworks stand to open on its property, and Albuquerque resident Douglas Flax traveled to Santa Fe on Tuesday to submit a petition to the state Supreme Court, pleading that the governor do more to ban the sale of fireworks.
On Wednesday, state Sen. Carlos Cisneros, D-Questa, issued a statement regarding the damage done by recent wildfires and what New Mexico will have to do to recover and to prevent such disasters in the future.
He said the state “must and will consider more effective ways to prohibit or restrict the use of fireworks.”
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