Fourth of July results in hundreds of 911 calls

Published 5:57 am Sunday, July 6, 2025

The Long Beach Peninsula was hammered with non-stop action on the Fourth of July. The Pacific County 911 Dispatch Center (PacCom) handled hundreds of calls, including a report of individuals stabbed, an emergency flare being shot off, and a child run over.

PacCom Director Cait Ochoa said dispatchers took 336 calls over 26 hours between 12 a.m. on July 4 and 2 a.m. on July 5, which is about triple the number of calls the agency typically receives in a 24-hour period.

“I would like to say that the call county does not fully capture the reality of what’s happening in the center,” Ochoa said. “You also have to consider the fire, [emergency medical services], and law enforcement traffic. Every call that comes in, in many cases, is just the beginning.”

“If you review the radio logs throughout the day, I bet you’ll see that the dispatchers rarely got a chance to take a breath from it all. I’m very proud of them and hope everyone recognizes how hard they work to keep everyone safe while they juggle everything at the center all at once,” Ochoa added.

One incident involving someone setting off an emergency flare into the air resulted in callers thinking a boat was in distress. Ochoa estimates that PacCom took at least 50 calls on the matter.

The incident led to a flurry of communications among PacCom, the Washington State Patrol, and the U.S. Coast Guard. It was determined that the flare was most likely set off by someone on the beach for fun, which is illegal outside of an actual emergency.

Not much is known about the incident in which a 7-year-old child was run over by a vehicle. Ochoa provided an update stating that the child was “alive and okay when transported” and survived the incident.

There was also no available information on the stabbing incident.

Washington State Patrol Sgt. Bradford Moon and his troopers had a long day and night dealing with the thousands-strong influx of Independence Day-goers. Officers throughout the county had their hands full the entire evening with unruly crowds.

“Very, very busy,” Moon said of the night. “I ended up in Wahkiakum [County] for a few hours for a wildfire that still has [State Route] 4 closed. Lots of fights/altercations, juveniles throwing mortar fireworks at each other…Tons of people!”

The north county region of Pacific County scraped by without any significant incidents. A few calls sent responders on wild goose chases, including a report of a vehicle fire on State Route 105 at milepost 12.

According to radio traffic, a passerby reported a vehicle “on fire,” which was relayed as a third-party account of a vehicle fire, meaning it was not a firsthand account of a vehicle being on fire.

Units from the Raymond Fire Department and Pacific County Fire District 3 responded to the report. After a search of several miles of the road, no fire was located. At a few of the pull-off spots near the area, vehicles were parked and people were setting off fireworks.

Tokeland was jam-packed with an estimated 3,000-plus people along the highway enjoying the festivities.

In addition to the no-fire vehicle fire, responders also responded to a report from a passerby that a small brush fire was near the area of the Port of Willapa Harbor and Pedigree Catamaran’s.

An officer from the South Bend Police Department was first on the scene and found that it was just some fireworks still burning. The officer and others put out the fireworks and canceled responding fire crews while they were en route.

Moments later, a caller in downtown Raymond on First Street reported a dumpster. Fire crews arrived on the scene and found smoke coming from the dumpster. The fire was quickly put out, capping the not-so-crazy night for the north county region.