More than 50 citations could be issued for the use of illegal fireworks in Santa Maria, according to the preliminary tally released by the city on Friday.

The final number remained uncertain Friday since the citations need to be reviewed by the city attorney before being issued, according to Mark van de Kamp, public information manager for Santa Maria.

This week’s enforcement efforts involved the Santa Maria Police and Fire departments seeking to extinguish the flurry of illegal fireworks use.

“Last night was very eventful,” fire inspector John Mata said.

Illegal fireworks, or those propelled into the sky, could be seen and heard from all segments of Santa Maria for more than six hours Thursday night.

In addition to patrols on the ground, the city reportedly hired an aircraft able to precisely pinpoint the location of scofflaws.

A citation for the illegal use of fireworks carries a $1,000 fine in the city. 

Firefighters also received reports that a couple of juveniles received medical treatment for injuries linked to illegal fireworks use, Mata said.

Firefighters in Santa Maria responded to a significant number of fires involving trash bins with fireworks suspected as the cause of those incidents, he added.

Illegal fireworks use didn’t end with the Fourth of July celebrations as the activity continued Friday evening.

Santa Maria wasn’t alone seeing plenty of illegal fireworks filling the skies. One Lompoc Valley resident described the situation as sounding like a war zone.

While the cause remained under investigation Friday, Santa Barbara County and Lompoc firefighters battled a vegetation fire late Thursday night at the southern edge of the city in a difficult-to-access area.

Shortly after 10 p.m., firefighters responded to the 500 block of O Street for the Willow Fire, which was contained to less than an acre with forward progress stopped just before midnight, county fire Capt. Scott Safechuck said.

A video of firefighters battling the blaze also captured illegal fireworks being propelled into the sky elsewhere in the Lompoc Valley.  

A report on the illegal fireworks use and enforcement efforts will be presented to the Lompoc City Council later this summer.

“It is disappointing that illegal fireworks continue to be a problem for our community. We are challenged in our ability to respond to the calls, but we are working toward solutions and hoping we can find a way to address the ongoing excessive use of illegal fireworks in the future,” Lompoc Mayor Jenelle Osborne said. 

All fireworks remain banned in most of Santa Barbara County, including the cities of Santa Barbara, Goleta, Carpinteria, Solvang and Buellton, plus unincorporated areas such as Orcutt and Isla Vista.

The state-certified safe and sane version are sold in the cities of Santa Maria, Lompoc and Guadalupe. However, those cities limit the use of safe and sane fireworks to July 4 only.

Santa Maria again adopted a campaign focused on education, enforcement and entertainment.

For the entertainment, Santa Maria hosted a drone show with attendance estimated at 1,500 — and likely larger since people gathered nearby, including in a vacant lot at the corner Miller and Jones streets.

Sponsors of the event to cover the costs included People for Leisure and Youth, the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, Driscoll’s Berries and the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce.

The 10-minute show that cost $50,000 included drones creating a strawberry, maps of California and the United States, a baseball and bat, and more.