LOS ANGELES — Drive through Hermon these days, and the main drag is dotted with orange signs declaring the Northeast L.A. neighborhood a “fireworks-free zone.” To be clear, every neighborhood in L.A. is supposed to be free of fireworks because they are illegal. 

But that hasn’t stopped the entire city from exploding in a cacophony of mind-numbingly loud explosions every night that make otherwise peaceful neighborhoods sound like war zones. During the first three weeks of June, the Los Angeles Police Department received almost double the number of calls about illegal fireworks than it did a year earlier and dispatched officers to investigate those complaints almost three times as often.

So what’s the best way to report fireworks?

There are two main avenues — by phone 877-275-5273 and online. Of course, if an illegal firework has caused a fire or personal injury, 911 is the call to make.

The fireworks complaint number, which also goes by the easier-to-remember 877-ASK-LAPD, is the agency’s non-emergency line. Calling it puts you in touch with a live human being who is either the police operator or non-emergency police dispatch.

The LAPD, however, prefers that people make their complaints online. Keep in mind that the complaint site is for residents of the city of Los Angeles only.

“Incidents occurring in other areas should be reported to the law enforcement agency for that area,” the site states. “LAPD will not forward complaints to other agencies.”

Complaints online can be made anonymously or with your name, which also requires that you provide your address, email, and phone number. The complaint site then prompts a “suspect description” for the person involved, followed by a page to provide details about when the incident happened and where — exactly — down to the address, cross street, street direction — even the type of street it is. Fill in those details, and you’re given a complaint number for future reference. 

“With the minimal resources we have to try to fight this, we can't be everywhere at once or try to track down every firework being set off.  In order for us to be effective, we need the locations where they are being set off,” said LAPD Senior Lead Officer Lenny Davis in a post on the neighborhood app Nextdoor. 

“Reporting fireworks being set off in the area will get random results with no follow up. If we can get a specific location or suspect description, officers can conduct follow ups, targeted patrol and possible prosecution from the City Attorney's office.” 

While LAPD steps up its fireworks enforcement around the 4th of July, it’s often not enough, said Bryan Gouge, senior arson and bomb investigator for CalFire.

“If you’ve got patrols, they'll see and hear those aerial devices, but trying to pinpoint where they’re coming from is difficult,” he said. “If you roll up on several people standing in the street and you have to ID who lit it off, it’s very difficult. Unless you’re there to witness it or able to get some sort of surveillance footage, it’s difficult to move forward with prosecution. It’s very resource intensive.”

On Thursday, City Attorney Mike Feuer announced his office is working to curb sales of illegal fireworks by “targeting popular online and mobile marketplaces with cease and desist letters” and “investigating online sales into the city of Los Angeles.” Many of the fireworks making their way into Los Angeles are from Nevada, where fireworks are legal, according to CalFire.

In the city of Los Angeles, it is “unlawful for any person to use, give, possess, sell, or discharge any fireworks,” according to the municipal code — even if the abundance of fireworks going off this year indicates otherwise. 

Fireworks possession is punishable as a misdemeanor or as a public offense in L.A.; fines range from $500 to more than $50,000. But those fines can be waived if the fireworks are turned in. LAPD accepts illegal fireworks without penalty by calling the same number used to report them: 877-275-5273. And it also recommends the website LACrimeStoppers.org if people have a tip they’d like to submit anonymously without contacting law enforcement. The website keeps the identities of tip providers anonymous by encrypting their personal data and handles all the tips it receives through a third-party service provider.