THE City of Swan council received a petition calling for fireworks to be prohibited across the Swan Valley and surrounds at its September ordinary council meeting.

Petition creator Nina Rosetta said she created the petition after experiencing two fireworks incidents within two weeks.

The first occurred on July 25.

“There was a loud banging and crashing sound and I looked out and could see my horses running around really scared as well as my heavily pregnant goats, so I ran down there and could see the fireworks. I grabbed the animals and tried to keep them safe, but I got knocked over,” Ms Rosetta said.

“It was just really shocking and the problem with fireworks is that you’re so busy dealing with it at the time that the next day you don’t know where the fireworks came from. I didn’t know where to go to ask questions – why did this happen and why weren’t we notified?”

The second incident occurred on August 8, but Ms Rosetta was notified in advance and managed to evacuate with her animals in time.

Ms Rosetta was not notified about the first display because it involved close-proximity fireworks.

The Department of Local Government, Industry Regulation and Safety (LGIRS) regulates fireworks and is responsible for issuing fireworks event permits, while local governments provide endorsements and comments as part of the assessment process.

Close-proximity fireworks do not require approval from LGIRS or the local government, and organisers are not required to notify nearby residents. Organisers are only required to notify the relevant local fire authority at least seven days before the event.

LGIRS describes close-proximity fireworks as being designed to be used safely at short distances indoors or outdoors and regulates their use through its code of practice.

The petition has received a lot of support from other Swan Valley residents, who have expressed concerns about the impact fireworks have on wildlife, farm animals, pets and people sensitive to noise like those with PTSD.

The conversation around prohibiting fireworks in the Swan Valley is not new.

In February, a resident proposed a motion at the City of Swan’s annual meeting of electors to prohibit fireworks in Swan Valley rural and rural residential areas and adjacent noise impact corridors.

The motion was taken to council on March 11, when the city said:

“The City of Swan is not the approving authority for fireworks event permits. The city’s role… is to provide comments and recommended conditions on fireworks event permit applications, which may include lodging an objection where appropriate.”

The fireworks events policy (POL-C-131) gives the city specific criteria for deciding whether to support a fireworks event and does not apply to close-proximity fireworks.

Under this policy, the city considers factors including previous issues associated with the venue, applicant, event coordinator or fireworks operator, the duration and finishing time of displays, and the number of fireworks events held at a premises.

The city can also consider previous displays at different premises if they have affected similar geographical areas.

A City of Swan spokesperson said that because the approving agency for firework event permits is LGIRS, it is not possible to completely ban fireworks displays within its boundaries.

“The city’s existing fireworks policy is currently under review. The reviewed version will be presented at a council briefing session in early 2027 and is then likely to be advertised for public consultation. It will then be presented to council for adoption at a future ordinary council meeting,” they said.

Ms Rosetta believes that prohibiting fireworks in the Swan Valley can mitigate the impact caused by all types of fireworks.

“My dream scenario would be that there’s immediately a better communication system put in place where we are notified. That would be fantastic in the interim while they finalise and work out how to navigate through this,” she said.

She also believes education is important.

“If we educate our community as to why fireworks are so harmful to people and wildlife, then they might go, ‘you know, I don’t want to do fireworks. I’m going to scare those beautiful baby swans that I saw or those nice animals that we all love’.”

Ms Rosetta’s petition can be viewed online.