Celebrating the Fourth: Fireworks, festivals take place in Clearlake, Lakeport
- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County returned to a more familiar celebration of Independence Day this weekend, with residents and visitors alike coming out to enjoy events that were more limited or canceled last year.
This year’s main events were in Clearlake on Saturday and Lakeport on Sunday.
Clearlake’s daylong Redbud Festival, beginning with the parade in the morning and continuing through to the fireworks display on Saturday night, drew thousands of people to Austin Park.
Last year, the city held a drive-in event, but this year looked more like past festivals, with the addition of a concert at the new band shell in Austin Park.
City streets around the event were lined with vehicles, and the crowd appeared larger than pre-COVID years.
“It went exceptionally well,” said Clearlake Police Chief Andrew White.
White said that, despite the large crowds and traffic there were no significant issues during the celebration.
“I think it was a shining moment for the city and a vision transformed to reality,” he said. “Along the way there were numerous degrading comments about how the event would fail, no one would sponsor the concert, there would be all kinds of crime, etc., etc. I think the community proved them wrong. It was a great event.”
White said he even ran into a former co-worker who came up from the Bay Area just for the concert.
In Lakeport, where the 2020 Independence Day event had been canceled because of the pandemic, the show was back on for Sunday.
Spectators crowded into the city and watched the fireworks display from locations including the shoreline.
In addition to Library Park, the fireworks barge this year was moved to make the show more visible from the new lakeside park that’s being constructed on the former Natural High property in order to allow for more spacing of spectators.
During the event, the Lakeport Police Department once again had a command post set up at City Hall, with mutual aid assistance from agencies including Lakeport Police, California State Parks, California Highway Patrol, Clearlake Police and Lake County Probation.
No alcohol was allowed at the event this year, and there was one alcohol-related arrest that involved a fight, said Police Chief Brad Rasmussen.
Rasmussen estimated that there was about the same amount of illegal firework activity as previous years.
The city of Lakeport is the only place in Lake County that allows for the sale and use of safe and sane fireworks from July 1 to 4. The city usually sets up an area to use safe and sane fireworks during the event, and this year officials enlarged the area for these fireworks on Fourth Street near Library Park.
Even so, the city every year plans for dealing with the illegal fireworks that make their way into the city and which were detonated before and after the city’s fireworks show.
New this year was an undercover team of a Lakeport Fire firefighter and a Lakeport Police officer who were on patrol looking for illegal fireworks.
Police seized illegal fireworks on Sunday as well as some safe and sane fireworks that Rasmussen said were transported to the city through areas where they are not legal.
The fireworks seizures occurred in areas including Library Park and Willopoint, Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen said there were a total of five misdemeanor arrests made by early Monday for illegal fireworks, with the undercover team contributing to those arrests. One of the arrests resulted from a foot pursuit on 11th Street.
Illegal fireworks seized by police included bottle rockets, mini blasters, flaming balls launched from mortar tubes, Roman candles and magic whips.
In one incident, illegal fireworks being discharged on a dock at Library Park injured a bystander, Rasmussen said.
He said a woman reported she had been burned when a mortar tube exploded prematurely.
Rasmussen said the illegal fireworks will be sent to the state fire marshal for destruction.
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