The city of Berkeley is closing certain roads on the Fourth of July holiday, as fireworks-gazers tend to want to head to hills to view the entire Bay. 

Grizzly Peak Boulevard, from Centennial Drive to Skyline Boulevard will be closed for 24 hours starting at 5 a.m. Thursday, except for residence, ride-share and delivery vehicles. 

This will affect public access to the Lawrence Hall of Science and the UC Botanical Garden. 

Panoramic Way and Prospect Street will also be closed from 2 p.m. until midnight.

Alameda County has only three cities that allow people to set off their own “Safe and Sane Fireworks.” Those cities are Newark, Dublin and Union City. 

The official “Safe and Sane” seal is determined by the state, as every jurisdiction has its own definition, but it’s basically anything that doesn’t leave the ground. Examples include fountains, sparklers, smokeballs, snake-type fireworks, ground-spinning fireworks, pinwheels and some crackling items.

To report illegal fireworks, contact the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. In Oakland, call the fireworks tip line at 510-238-2373 or go to the city of Oakland online reporting tool.

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.