Some regulators are saying some parts of Southern California experienced some of the worst air quality in decades over the holiday weekend. That's due to the increase in the use of personal fireworks and weather conditions.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District said the overall average concentrations of particulate matter were 70 percent higher than previous years. They also say pollution was trapped in the air longer than normal due to dry weather conditions.
Here in Bakersfield, the city fire department has released the number of calls for service and illegal fireworks citations that were issued over the holiday weekend.
According to city fire city and county dispatchers received more than 6,600 calls for service from July 3rd until July 5th. BFD responded to 88 fires over this past weekend.
There were just under 1,000 calls for illegal fireworks, 796 of which were handled by the BFD operations center. And city fire says 71 illegal fireworks citations have been tallied to this date and officials say they expect more to be collected from the enforcement team.
