PORT ANGELES — Firefighters and law enforcement officials reported nothing out of the ordinary for an Independence Day on the North Olympic Peninsula.
East Jefferson Fire-Rescue spokesman Bill Beezley reported that there were no fireworks-related fires or injuries that he was aware of.
“We were clean,” Beezley said.
Port Townsend has a ban on the use of consumer fireworks.
In Sequim, firefighters were busy the day before the holiday putting out a 100-square-foot brush fire on west Washington Street.
They were called out again to extinguish a small grass fire on Viking Way off Silberhorn on Saturday.
It was busy in Port Angeles.
City police worked overtime responding to 50 calls for service between 7 p.m. Thursday and 3 a.m. Friday, Deputy Police Chief Brian Smith said.
The Peninsula Communications 9-1-1 emergency dispatch center logged
232 calls for service for all agencies between 3 p.m. Thursday and 3 a.m. Friday, compared with 134 calls during the same hours a week earlier, Smith said.
The complaints represented a “full range of public safety calls for service,” including driving under the influence, prowlers, fireworks complaints and trespass, Smith said.
Clallam County Sheriff’s Office Chief Criminal Deputy Ron Cameron said the only fire he was aware of was a 20-foot-by-20-foot brush fire south of Lake Sutherland, which Clallam County Fire District 2 extinguished. (See story at right.)
“It must have been pretty quiet, because nobody I talked to had much to tell me,” Cameron said on Friday.
“Overall, I would say my deputies reported a quieter-than-normal Fourth.”
But he added that fireworks in some areas sounded like a “war zone.”
Port Angeles police were assisted at the Fourth of July parade Thursday by the Border Patrol, Sequim police, Elwha police, National Park Service rangers and volunteers.
“Things went really well,” Smith said.
“There were no incidents.”
Fireworks were legal in Port Angeles on Thursday only.
Consumer fireworks became illegal in all other areas as of 11 p.m. Friday.
Leftover fireworks can be discharged after 6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.
But as calls were flooding in late Thursday, Port Angeles police were dealing with an aggravated assault involving three people in the parking lot of the Lincoln Street Safeway.
“We had that in the midst of a bunch of other calls and responses,” Smith said.
Port Angeles Fire Chief Ken Dubuc said that his department responded to three small fireworks-related blazes Thursday.
On Friday, a garage was damaged by a fireworks-caused fire in the 600 block of West 10th Street.
“We were busy,” Dubuc said, who added that there were no major fires Friday night.
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
