July 4th firework shows cancel in Madera and various cities amid company investigation

Madera is not the only city affected by the cancellation of its 4th of July firework shows due to the State Fire Marshal's investigation.

California's Illegal Fireworks Task Force cracked down on the vendor, Exposhows Inc., on Saturday in its warehouse in Kern County. It says the company is now under investigation after it uncovered illegal activity at its warehouse.

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The State Fire Marshall says it found the group in possession of fireworks that had fake state marshal seals, possession of homemade explosives, and without a license.

"California has zero tolerance for the possession use of illegal fireworks. I am proud to announce today our bomb investigators stopped an unlicensed group out of Kern County who had allegedly been fraudulently offering to put on public display shows," said Chief Michael Richwine, with the state's office.

"We believe they violated at least 15 various fireworks and explosives laws and regulations," said Richwine, as they work closely with the district attorney's office on the case.

The company has contracted nearly a dozen cities across the state to perform 4th of July firework shows and has being doing so for many years.

Now, those cities are left to scramble this year for other vendors to put on a show or cancel completely.

One of those cities? Madera.

Rohi Zacahari, President of the Madera Kiwanis Club, says they were notified there was a problem with the vendor on Friday.

He says the vendor reached out to them, "he contacted us, along with, he had been putting on 16 other shows from our understanding, so he had put out a big blast that there was an issue, that he was working to find a solution for, that he was hopeful by Monday that he would have a fixed for and by Saturday, he gave us the final news that it just wasn't going to be happening."

It's the first time Madera Kiwanis Club has put together the event.

There hasn't been a city-wide firework show in nearly four years due to funding and COVID-19. This year. the lot will be empty once again.

"I wanna say sorry to the community. I mean, I know everybody was kind of looking forward to this and again just put it on the calendars for next year 'cause we'll be back," Zacharia said.

FOX26 News reached out to the company Exposhows by phone call and email to try to hear it's side of the story. It hasn't not responded.

We are hoping to find out more information by tomorrow.

California Fire and Police agencies say on average, 250,000 pounds of illegal fireworks are confiscated a year.

This year, they've already seized 150,000 pounds.