SACRAMENTO, Calif. — State Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, D-West Sacramento, and Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, D-Winters, plan to introduce legislation tightening California’s explosives permitting process, the lawmakers told The Sacramento Bee. The announcement comes two weeks after an unpermitted fireworks warehouse exploded in Esparto, killing seven people.

The explosion was a “wholly preventable tragedy,” Cabaldon said in a statement.

Cabaldon intends to look closely at the state’s licensing process to determine if it is too lax, he said. The issue was brought to his attention by reporting from The Bee and other news outlets highlighting a stark difference between state and federal law concerning who can be licensed to work with high-grade explosives like those that sparked an inferno in Esparto on July 1.

The explosion in Esparto is “a tragic wake-up call that’s shown us our state licensing standards are not sufficient for protecting the public,” Aguiar-Curry said in a statement.

“We have to make sure our laws reflect how serious these risks are and prevent tragedies like this from happening again,” she said.

Both lawmakers are teaming up with regulators and public safety experts to better diagnose the problem and find a solution.

Cabaldon hopes to find ways to “tighten up state oversight of fireworks operators”, he said. He also hopes to bring California’s licensing requirements in line with ones by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The owner of Devastating Pyrotechnics, the company at the center of the blast, holds multiple California licenses — including one to import fireworks — but he is not eligible for an ATF import license due to a past felony conviction, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Under California law, only explosives, fireworks or arson-related convictions bar someone from obtaining a fireworks license. That discrepancy between state and federal restrictions is “a loophole that needs to be closed in the California requirements,” said Julie Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association.

Both Esparto lawmakers agree with Heckman’s assessment. Aguiar-Curry is working with other lawmakers and public safety officials “to learn more about why and how this loophole exists and possible legislative or regulatory solutions to close it”, she said.

Cabaldon’s suggestion that the state should play more of a role in local facility inspections could have an outsized impact on a small, rural fire department like Esparto’s.

Under state law, it’s the responsibility of local fire departments to permit the storage of fireworks in their jurisdiction. Cal-OSHA, the state’s office of workplace safety, is responsible for inspecting permitted facilities to ensure adherence to labor laws, but because this facility did not have the appropriate permits, it’s possible the facility was never on the agency’s radar.

That leaves the onus on the local fire authority, which usually would have conducted a thorough safety check before approving the facility for a permit. The Esparto Fire Protection District is one of 15 small rural fire departments in Yolo County that have struggled with budgetary and staffing shortages in recent years. Esparto’s district has only three full-time employees, relying instead on volunteers for more significant emergencies. Recent federal cuts also limit the resources available to investigate the incident.

Cabaldon believes stronger inspection requirements could have identified the unpermitted facility and prevented the explosion. He said he hopes investigators find answers for the families of the victims, who “have suffered a terrible loss.”

“They deserve a thorough, transparent investigation into what happened.”

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