PINEDALE – Following a close call at this year’s Fourth of July fireworks in Pinedale, Sublette County Unified Fire (SCUF) Chief Shad Cooper attended the county commissioners’ regular meeting on Tuesday, hoping to see some changes be implemented for future firework shows.

“Firefighters are trained to put out fires,” Cooper said Tuesday. “We’re not specialists in doing fireworks.”

Cooper recounted the harrowing ordeal in which a 5-inch shell got lodged in the mortar tube, igniting eight shells around it in a “cascading effect (of) multiple simultaneous detonation.”

“Instead of happening 200 feet in the air, it happened right in front of the firefighters,” Cooper said.

As per SCUF’s protocol, all firefighters were wearing full structural firefighting clothing during the show, which helped limit the injuries to minor bumps and bruises.

“When it blew up, we were all pelted with flying shrapnel,” recounted Cooper, who was also standing in close proximity. “And because of the quality of our gear, there were no major injuries.”

When Cooper took the helm in 2014, he also instituted crowd precautions, which limited the proximity the public could be to the detonation site to 1,200 feet.

“You’ve got to get the public far enough away,” Cooper said. “Three years ago, when I came on board, that was one of the third things I did.”

After the July incident, investigators found that several shells actually detonated and created a “large divot” at the softball fields, where crowds used to gather.

Moving forward, Cooper hopes to see a few changes brought to the county’s firework shows and he told commissioners that he’d be approaching the towns – including Pinedale and Big Piney/Marbleton – with similar recommendations.

For starters, he hopes to see professional firework companies put on the shows.

“Let’s bring in trained professionals who do nothing but fireworks,” Cooper said. “Let’s let the professionals do what they do, which then frees up the firefighters to do what we do.”

Another possible recommendation would be to use electronic ignition for all the shells, which is currently only required for 8-inch shells and larger. But Cooper also cited evidence that even the set-up of electronic ignition can prove dangerous as any number of things can prematurely set off the shells.

“All that’s doing is shifting the risk (to set-up),” Cooper said. “It’s not really reducing the risk.”

An additional recommendation is that the towns only use 2- and 3-inch shells.

In Pinedale, there were past complaints about those shells, which don’t travel as high, that people couldn’t see them as well. Cooper acknowledged that it would be a “reduced display, so there’s a trade-off there.”

The bottom line for Cooper is working with the county and the towns to find a way to keep his firefighters safe.

“We really need to look at this further and work with the town councils to say, ‘Let’s reduce this risk,’” Cooper said.

“We really dodged a bullet there,” board chair Andy Nelson said. “Kudos to you and your crew for a job well done. That could have been a disaster.”

For more from the commissioners’ meeting, see Tuesday’s Examiner.