ST. GEORGE — There will be just two parks where people can legally set off fireworks in the city of Ivins for the July holidays.
The Ivins City Council made it official during their meeting last Thursday, designating the dirt portions of the combined three baseball fields at Ivins City Park – also referred to as Center Street Park – and UNITY Park as the only places where fireworks will be allowed in the city in July. Fireworks will be prohibited everywhere else in Ivins. See map here.
The sites were decided by City Manager Dale Coulam and Santa Clara/Ivins Fire and Rescue with an eye on narrowing the legal places to set off fireworks, citing an increased fire danger from the current drought.
As far as they were concerned, using just the dirt infields would be ideal for narrowing down potential trouble spots for the Fire Department for both Independence Day and Pioneer Day.
“As dry as we are, we need to make sure it’s just the dirt,” Coulam said during Thursday’s meeting, where the council approved the ordinance in a unanimous 5-0 vote. “It will be a little easier to patrol for the Fire Department. Instead of having to drive through the city, they can just cover the two parks and be responsive to any fire that might ignite.”
Last month, the city of St. George announced it would limit the use of fireworks to its 16 city parks.
Santa Clara/Ivins Fire Chief Randy Hancey said the department is especially concerned about spots of dry vegetation throughout the city and even areas of bamboo near the parks as potential spots that would be kindled by an errant rocket’s red glare on July Fourth.
“Our concern is they shoot off aerials, and there is nearby dry brush so we’re limiting it to the ball fields so it’s as far away as possible.”
Fireworks will be only allowed to be set off in the baseball fields from July 2-5 and from July 22-25 at the two parks.
Coincidentally, the Ivins fire station happens to sit along the first base line of the baseball field at Ivins City Park.
Sentierre Resort scales down
In other business at its meeting last Thursday, the Ivins City Council unanimously approved for Coulam to review a scaled-down development proposal for the Sentierre Padre Canyon Resort that is planned just south of the Tuacahn Center for the Arts.
When proposed back in 2016, the resort was presented to the council as a planned five-star resort with multi-story buildings.
The developers told the council Thursday that with some financing falling through, the resort is scaling back its plans, including eliminating all but one of the multi-story buildings and keeping almost all of the resort to a one-story facility with an underground garage.
The council directed Coulam to review the proposal before it will be approved or denied by the council at a future meeting.
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