Countywide : Additional Cache of Illegal Fireworks Seized

Authorities have confiscated an additional 1,000 to 1,500 pounds of illegal fireworks they say were being stored by a Los Alamitos man arrested this week on suspicion of having two tons of pyrotechnics in Orange and San Bernardino counties, police said Friday.

Long Beach fire investigators were tipped off on Thursday by Los Alamitos police that Robert Gjetley, 47, was storing 30 cases of skyrockets, firecrackers, aerial bombs, mortars, and other fireworks in the garage of an apartment house he owns in Long Beach. Doug McClure, an arson investigator, said the various pyrotechnic materials have a street value of about $20,000 and posed a substantial risk to residents of the neighborhood.

“If that garage had blown, we would have lost four or five houses immediately,” McClure said. He noted that the explosive powder in the fireworks can crystallize with age, making it susceptible to ignition by something as innocuous as high-frequency radio transmissions.

Gjetley, a longshoreman, was arrested Wednesday after police seized illegal fireworks at his house in a quiet residential neighborhood in Los Alamitos and a second spot in the San Bernardino County town of Phelan. His brother, Donald, 44, was also arrested on suspicion of helping to acquire the fireworks for sale.