SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — If you live in the south part of Spokane Valley, you may have heard large booms, bangs and pows Saturday afternoon.
The explosive sounds took a lot of Valley residents by surprise, and as speculation swarmed social media platforms, like Facebook, Ring Neighbors, and Next Door, some discovered it was just a professional fireworks training session.
Fireworks? In the middle of a bright, sunny spring day?
Spokane and Spokane Valley are well-known for their impressive aerial, professional fireworks shows.
The Spokane Chief host them at home games during the season, and the skies light up over downtown Spokane during the 4th of July and on New Year’s Eve.
It makes sense for people looking to get into the professional fireworks industry to train during the daytime, in favorable weather conditions like we had on Saturday.
KXLY found out the training was held at The Oaks Christian Academy in the area of 24th Ave. and Bowdish.
The Spokane Valley Fire Marshal explained that the trainees secured a permit for the training, and it was supposed to be held at the Spokane Valley Fair & Expo.
The Academy said, for some reason, the fairgrounds venue fell through in a last-minute fashion, and a decision was made to hold the training in the sports fields at The Oaks.
KXLY reached out to both the fairgrounds and the Spokane Chiefs to ask about the cancellation.
Both the school and fire department said they had been fielding calls from concerned citizens Monday morning about the lack of a warning to area residents.
Spokane Valley Fire said its very important to have highly-trained people working for professional, aerial fireworks shows, and that internal conversations will be had about changes to locations for these trainings, going forward.
The fire department also plans to partner with local media to spread the word ahead of daytime fireworks training sessions, so that residents can be prepared and educated on why daytime trainings are so important.
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