EVERETT — Nearly 90 fire calls on the Fourth of July may seem like a lot for most people.
For Snohomish Regional Fire & Rescue spokesperson Peter Mongillo, this year was a “quieter” holiday than expected.
“We thought it would be much more severe,” he said. “We had a much lower rate of calls across the district.”
Snohomish Regional received a total of 88 calls on Friday. The Lake Stevens area is usually the busiest on the Fourth of July. The firefighters that serve the area only received 14 fireworks-related calls out of 38 total.
Mongillo wasn’t sure why this Fourth of July was not as busy, he said.
One of the more significant fireworks-related calls happened Friday night near Monroe. A man in his 40s set off a cannon resulting in a life-threatening hand injury, a social media post said. A person drove him to Fire Station 33 where medics applied a tourniquet and administered lifesaving medications.
The patient was transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where doctors performed surgery. The hand could not be saved, Mongillo said.
Also at 7:30 a.m. on July 5, Snohomish Regional firefighters responded to a report of a fire on the 1700 block of 72nd Avenue SE in Lake Stevens. As crews arrived, they could see heavy smoke and flames coming from the home, a social media post said. The fire and resulting firefighting efforts caused significant damage to the home and displaced two adults and three children, the post said.
A preliminary investigation suggested fireworks ignited a bark fire on July 4, which spread to a bush next to the house and started the house fire on Saturday.
Taylor Scott Richmond: taylor.richmond@heraldnet.com; X: @BTayOkay
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