KURTEN, Texas — Although the Fourth of July is still a few months away, one community fears their festivities are already fizzling out.
On Thursday, members of the District 2 Volunteer Fire Department voted to discontinue hosting their annual Fourth of July fireworks show in Kurten, Texas.
Their Facebook post announcement was met with many disappointed responses, with attendees expressing how this family tradition for many, has now been lost. Some have even called it a poor decision.
According to the department, the cost and effort to put the show on was ultimately what led them to stop hosting the show.
“It just got to a point it didn’t make sense from a resource management aspect," said PIO, Travis Rollins. "The amount of money the amount of time that it takes, we really want to focus our volunteer hours on training versus fundraising.”
But the fire department wants the community to know it's not the end of the event and they are looking to pass on this tradition to local non-profits and organizations that are interested in keeping the firework show alive and have the funds to make it work.
“People just look at the cost of the fireworks but there are so many other moving parts to it and we have all these moving parts and know what all those moving parts are and we wanna say here’s how you do it take it and run with it and that’s really what we’re looking for," Rollins explained. "We want to continue the tradition but we also had to be realistic in knowing it was time for us to pass it on.”
The event attracts more than 5,000 people each year and would cost the department more than $20,000 to put on.
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