By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

This will be a long, busy holiday weekend for the Hays Fire Department.

In addition to manning an extra fire truck Thursday, Friday and Saturday — the days fireworks can be sold and discharged in Hays — firefighters will be on standby at the Wild West Festival for the July 4th fireworks extravaganza.

The Hays Fire Department works closely each year with the Wild West Fest committee and the fireworks show producer, according to Deputy Fire Chief Ryan Hagans. The event “seems seamless, thanks to lots of planning,” Hagans said.

“We’ve been communicating the past two weeks. Ellis County Rural Fire, Hays Police Department, Ellis County Sheriff, Kansas Highway Patrol, Ellis County EMS…we all get together and we talk about fireworks safety at the fireworks display site. We make sure that the ground is prepared–working with Fort Hays State University. There’s lots of fire trucks out there. There’s some ambulances out there,” Hagans said.

Hundreds of vehicles will be driving and parking in the area between historic Fort Hays and FHSU Tiger Stadium, which requires coordination when they arrive for the show and then leave afterwards.

“The traffic coordination that the WWF committee does with K-DOT (Kansas Department of Transportation) to get the bypass shutdown” is another element of the fireworks show safety plan, Hagans explained.

RELATED: Already one house fire in Kansas blamed on fireworks.

The group has a final safety meeting at 8:30 p.m. prior to the fireworks show scheduled start at 10 p.m. Saturday.

One firetruck and off-duty personnel are on standby at the downtown Hays fire station during the fireworks show to respond to any fire in the city. Hagans said if a major fire were to break out in the city or in Ellis County, the trucks and and personnel at WWF will respond and the fireworks show would have to be postponed.

Hays Fire Chief Gary Brown offered these fireworks safety tips to Hays Post’s Cooper Slough recently.