There have been fewer fireworks complaints this year, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department.

Although no one knows the precise reason, it would feel good to believe it’s because the community’s collective consciousness has been raised due to the destruction wrought by the Waldo Canyon fire. If responses from readers are to be believed, there is far less tolerance for bottle rockets and firecrackers this year so if anything, there would be more complaints.

Yet that is not the case. It must be that fewer fireworks are being shot off.

Fireworks have been illegal in the city limits for years but just maybe, the community is being more circumspect now.

In 2011 there were 616 fireworks complaints, said Barbara Miller, public information officer for CSPD. As of the end of June, she said, there had been 184 complaints, including 101 in June. As firefiighters continued their work protecting the city Sunday and Monday, there were 11 more fireworks complaints.

“Wouldn’t it be something if someone started a fire with fireworks?” Miller said.

Indeed it would.

It’s far from a scientific sample, but when readers were asked Tuesday about fireworks in their neighborhoods, the answer uniformly came back that fireworks have been mostly muted.

“I heard some the other day while passing through Pueblo,” a reader responded, “but nothing from Security/Widefield/Fountain thus far. Of course, the day’s young. I’m sure there’s a few Neanderthal-brained morons out there planning their personal Fourth display at this very moment.”

“I haven’t heard any yet, which is very rare,” wrote a reader from Cragmor. “If I do, I won’t let it go like I did in past years.”

“I haven’t heard any,” said a reader from the Patty Jewett neighborhood.

Another reader, evacuated during the fire, said “I’m in Rockrimmon and I haven’t heard a single one this year.”

A second Rockrimmon reader said “nothing yet. Hoping it stays that way.”

Truly, it would be shocking to learn of fireworks going off in neighborhoods that were evacuated during the fire.

In my neighborhood on the east side, firecrackers go off on New Year’s and usually begin to punctuate the night a few days before the fourth of July. Not this year, though.

I still worry that on the Fourth, some will shoot off fireworks on the greenway, which has been a popular spot in the past. The greenway isn’t too green right now.

It is harder to buy fireworks these days because there are fewer retailers but clearly, if you want fireworks badly enough you can find them.

Just don’t look for directions to a fireworks stand in this column.

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Listen to Barry Noreen on KRDO NewsRadio 105.5 FM and 1240 AM at 6:35 a.m. on Fridays and follow him on Twitter and Facebook.